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Means to Ends 



THE EXPERIENCE OF RIGHT AGAINST 
MIGHT IN AGRICULTURAL PURSUIT. 



'By H. H. De WEESE, 

Author of " Secrets of Success " and " Force of Habit. 



COLUMBUS, OHIO. 
1901. 



1, 









4 1904 

n Onovrlffht Entry 
CLASS ft. XXc. No. 
COPY B 



Copyrighted 1901 

BY 

H. H. DeWEESE 



TABLE OF CONTENTS- 



Introductory 3 

From Boyhood to Manhood 18 

A Heeding Solicitude 74 

Individuality , 129 



INTRODUCTORY. 

INTEODUCTOKY remarks generally fore- 
stall the characteristics or contents of the 
book — the same as being introduced to 
or meeting strangers. The first impression 
generally concludes your likes or dislikes. A 
few remarks will denote the character of the 
one introduced to. We generally read people 
by their facial expression and every day acts, 
as one's actions oftentimes speak louder than 
words. A quiet disposition generally denotes 
a peaceful mind and rest and at ease with him 
or herself, slow to anger and of a forgiving 
nature, conscientious and devoid of malice. ? Tis 
this sort of character that moves the world, 
that counteracts good for evil and helps many 
a wayward soul over hard places. They have 
formed such habits of character that others 
may read as they run, and their face has be- 
come a looking glass to those who look therein, 
and it is a pleasure to meet them. They seem 
to be surrounded with environments that draw 
their fellow-man unto them. ? Tis such charac 
ter of acts, gained from actual experience, that 



4 INTRODUCTORY. 

the author wishes to portray in every pursuit 
of life, as nothing will perpetuate nobler acts 
more than to be in close touch with nature. 
The artist, in order to gain world-wide fame, 
studies nature in her humble state that he may 
portray upon canvas some farm scene in some 
quiet nook or picturesque valley that is uni- 
versally admired and studied by those who are 
hopeful that some day or some time they may 
enjoy peace and rest in just such a place as 
pictured upon the canvas. They struggle, they 
plan schemes in every way to become suddenly 
rich, that they may live in luxury and ease; but 
alas ! the grim reaper of death mows them down 
with their task unfinished. Others take their 
places, pursuing the same forlorn hope. 'Tis 
only those who are satisfied with small gains 
and tranquility of mind that really obtain 
peaceful enjoyment out of life. Fast living 
and the dishonest methods to obtain it have 
caused more misery and engulfed more victims 
than if a tidal wave had deluged the whole con- 
tinent We are surrounded with alluring 
temptations and devastation, oppressions from 
professions, sacrificing both friend and foe, in 
order to obtain a luxurious livelihood, and at 
last one learns that "He who buyeth that which 



INTRODUCTORY. 



he does not need, will live to see that which he 
cannot buy." Self-denial makes one strong. 
Deny yourself the luxuries of life and the 
means will furnish you with the necessaries of 
life and the means to ends. Well perform thy 
task, however humble; be honest and upright; 
be kind at heart to earn a little and to spend a 
little less; to make upon the whole the world 
happier by your presence; to renounce, when 
that shall be necessary, and not be embittered; 
keep a few friends, but these without compen- 
sation; above all, on the same firm conditions, 
to keep friends with yourself. Here is a task 
for all that a man has of existing. For he who 
is false to present duty breaks a thread in the 
loom and will find the flaw when he may have 
forgotten the cause. To be born poor is a bless- 
ing in disguise, if we have the right stuff in us. 
Eiches are not the blessings many of us suppose 
them to be. Our fathers toiled, our mothers 
spinned; they denied themselves the comforts 
of life that they earned and needed in old age; 
their pleasures were few — all to save up for the 
children a store of wealth. The wealth for 
which any young man has not labored does not 
impress its real value upon him. Every young 
man should be taught in early manhood "the 



6 INTRODUCTORY. 

necessity of self-reliance," to do his own think- 
ing, and build np an honest business, for there 
is always some one thing that one can do better 
than another. One should seek to know what 
this is and, when found, apply one's energies 
to that one thing. Many a student would have 
made a great success as a farmer or carpenter; 
many a farmer is plodding hopelessly and 
wearily along who would have filled some other 
position with credit. It is not so much what 
one chooses, as to choose what one is fitted for; 
then success will crown your efforts. Success 
commands wherever it is obtained. One had 
better be a first-class mechanic than a poor 
preacher, or lawyer or doctor, teacher, or pro- 
fessor: they are a burden to the whole com- 
munity. Whatever one may choose, put your 
best thought in it and dignify it by your earn- 
est, honest work. Success will be sure to fol- 
low. And bear in mind that the amassing of 
wealth is not the highest form of success: the 
upbuilding of character is the great aim of life 
Many think because they possess wealth and 
influence they can buy character. Such per- 
sons are dangerous and, sooner or later, will 
find wealth gone and no character. My ex- 
perience has taught me that it is not so much 



INTRODUCTORY. I 

what our conditions are as how we meet them. 
If they are not such as we would wish, com- 
plaint will not alter them. Kepinings breed 
melancholy and despair. The more we brood 
over our conditions, the worse they will appear 
to us, the less strength of mind and energy we 
have to combat against them. There is scarcely 
a bad bud but what might be worse. One must 
learn to face these conditions with a smile and 
manly spirit, cheerfulness and hope, as cheer 
fulness can become a habit, and good habits 
help us over hard places. The Bible says a just 
man shall rise and fall seven times. Hope is 
an inspiration. Hope is the foundation on 
which we all stand. I write this book in the 
hope that it will inspire many minds to im* 
provement, and opportunities will arise by 
which you may lessen your hardships. And if 
I cannot change them you may endure them 
more easily. My experience has taught me 
that it is well for us that life should not be all 
plain sailing with smooth sea, favoring winds 
and sunny skies. It was the many hardships, 
trials and endurances that furnished the food 
for thought that enabled me to write this book 
and entitle it "Means to Ends;" it was in meet- 
ing storms that bereft the masts of sail and 



8 INTRODUCTORY. 

sent me adrift; in conquering adverse winds 
and overcoming obstacles mountain high; in 
bearing up in cloudy weather. Here I gained 
strength. It is experience that gives us wis- 
dom. Each adversity overcome gives us greater 
strength to conquor the next. Each tempta- 
tion resisted is a step up a higher plane of life. 
The highest virtue is not that which has never 
been tempted. To know how to wring victory 
from defeat and to make stepping-stones of our 
stumbling blocks is the secret of success in 
every pursuit of life. One's greatest glory is 
not in never falling, but in rising ever time we 
fall. Were our way all roses and no thorns, 
we would cease to make efforts to rise higher 
— we would become narrow and selfish. If our 
troubles seem great to us we must remember 
there are others bearing as great or greater 
ones than our's. Keep courage and cheerful- 
ness. Learn to know men and do better. No 
one need be discouraged because they are 
poor, from trying to gain any honorable end. 
The reason so many fail to attain success arises 
from many causes. Many give up and allow 
others to do their thinking for them. And the 
one does the thinking, the other fellow the 
labor. You may form your own conclusion as 



INTRODUCTORY. 9 

to which one will succeed. There is no barrier 
that can break down where both mental and 
physical strength are both applied with even 
balance; there is no place where better applied 
than on the farm. 

Twenty-five years ago my story begins. A 
great many other things began also which 
will furnish the chief topics of "Means to 
Ends;" not from theory of fiction, but from ex- 
perience, observation, feeling and seeing, hav- 
ing run the gauntlet of mankind through al- 
most every channel of commercial activity. To 
describe all would be worse than the horrors of 
war, because business is fought with such ven- 
genace that it's a continual strife against war- 
fare, practically in a balloon flying through 
space, with just sufficient ballast to clear ob- 
struction. To deny this would falsify the rapid 
advancements and achievements in the time 
described. But after all this mighty stride 
that has caused untold millions to gratify the 
whims of the few at the expense of the many, 
that is sapping the life-blood and energy out of 
that which produced it, until in the end the cost 
of the maintainance will exceed that of con- 
struction. This will take ages to repair. His- 
tory repeats itself, and what will be has been, 



10 INTRODUCTORY. 

and what has been will be. Men become so 
absorbed in gain, with the excitement attained 
in building up gigantic enterprises and vast 
fortunes, that not even the public stops to count 
the future cost and the future hardships that 
are sure to follow. 

The future is ignored, the present absorbs 
every effort. So great and gigantic is the pres- 
ent. Incorporated towns and cities bond their 
freeholders in order to give bonds to enterprise, 
in order to create labor. The bonds generally 
are bonds bearing interest for all time to come 
and a lien on the little homes that the bond- 
bearing interest created labor. The proceeds 
of labor built the homes, and now the homes 
are taxed to pay the interest on the bond, and 
if the principal was demanded the whole incor- 
porated town would have to be sold to pay it. 
There never was a single act performed or en- 
acted but what in due time there was reaction 
right back upon that which produced it. All 
this I have learned and observed from exper- 
ience, and it holds good in every instance in 
growing large yields of any cereal. It would 
be folly to expect the same soil to succeed itself 
with like results. There would be reaction: 
same with sowing the same seed on the same 



INTRODUCTORY. 11 

soil. I also learned the value of the fertilizer 
by action. The soil produced the ashes and 
reacts with the same results. You cannot 
cheat nature without reaction, either morally, 
physically or intellectually. Our frail bodies 
are like a steam boiler. They will stand only 
so much pressure, then something must give 
way. Some are born and reared with greater 
endurance and mental or physical capacity 
than others and can stand more action and 
hardships than others. But there is a limit; 
same way with soil. Some are stronger than 
others in plant food. But there is a limit and 
reaction. There never was a laugh but what 
a moan was sure to follow. The laugh caused 
the moan or reaction. There could have been 
no laugh or moan to cause the laugh without 
some act. 

We generally judge men by the company 
they keep; or tell me what books a man reads 
and I will tell you what he is. For there is a 
companionship of books as well as of men, and 
one should always live in the best company, 
whether it be books or of men. A good book 
may be among the best of friends. It is the 
same to-day as it always was, and it will never 
change it is the most patient and cheerful 



12 INTRODUCTORY. 

of companions. It does not turn its back npon 
us in times of adversity or distress. It always 
receives us with the same kindness — amusing 
and instructing us in youth, and comforting 
and consoling us in age. Men often discover 
their affinity to each other by the mutual love 
they have for a book, just as two persons some- 
times discover a friend by the admiration which 
both entertain for a third. Books wind into 
the heart, the subjects slides in to the current 
of our blood. We read them when young, we 
remember them when old. We read then 
what has happened to others, we feel that 
it has happened to ourselves. They are to 
be had everywhere. They are cheap and good. 
We breathe but the air of books. We owe 
everything to their authors on this side of bar- 
barism. A good book is often the best turn 
of a life, enshrining the best thoughts of which 
that life was capable; for the world of a man's 
life is for the most part but the world of his 
thoughts. Thus the best books are treas- 
ures of good words and golden thoughts, 
which, remembered and cherished, become 
our abiding companions and great comfort- 
ers. They are never alone, they are accom- 
panied by whole thougths. The good a true 



INTRODUCTORY. 13 

thought may in time of temptation be as an 
angel of mercy, purifying and guarding the 
soul. Good books also enshrines the germs of 
action, for good words almost invariably in- 
spire to good works. Books possess all essence 
of immortality, they are by far the most costing 
products of human effort. Temples crumble 
into ruin, pictures and statues decay, but books 
survive. Time is of no account with great 
thoughts which are as fresh to-day as when they 
first passed through their authors minds ages 
ago. What was then said and thought still 
speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed 
page. The only effect of time has been to sift 
and winnow out the bad products, for nothing 
in literature can long survive but what is really 
good. Good books bring us into the presence 
of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We 
hear what they said and did. We see them as 
if they were really in our presence. We are 
participators in their thoughts. We sym- 
pathize with them; grieve with them; their ex- 
perience becomes ours and we feel as if we were 
in a measure actors with them in the scenes 
which they describe. The great and good do 
not die even in this world embalmed in books. 
Their spirits walk abroad. The book is a liv- 



14 INTRODUCTORY. 

ing voice, it is an intellect to which one still 
listens. Hence we remain under the influence 
of the great men always. It is to books and 
their spirit embalmed in them of great men, 
that we turn for entertainment, for instruction 
and solace in joy and in sorrow as in prosperity 
and in adversity. Man himself is of all things 
in the world the most interesting to man ; what- 
ever relates to human life, its experiences, its 
joys, its sufferings and its achievements, has 
usually attraction for him beyond all else. 
Each man is more or less interested in all other 
men as his fellow-creature, as members of the 
great family of human kind and the larger a 
man's culture the wider is the range of his 
sympathies in all that affect the welfare of his 
race. Yet the authentic picture of any human 
brings life and experience; ought to possess an 
interest greatly beyond that which is fictitious, 
inasmuch as it has the charm of reality. Every 
person may learn something from the recorded 
life of another, and even comparatively trivial 
deeds and sayings may be invested with inter- 
est as being the outcome of such beings as we 
ourselves are. The records of the lives of good 
men are especially useful. They influence our 
hearts, inspire us with hope and set before us 



INTRODUCTORY. 15 

great examples, and when men have been men 
and allowed to do their duty through life, their 
influence will never pass away. The prize and 
noble life is never out of season. There is no 
man so commonplace that a wise man may not 
learn something from him. A noble life put 
fairly on record acts like an inspiration to 
others. It exhibits what life is capable of be- 
ing made. It refreshes our downcast spirits, 
encourages our hopes, gives us new strength 
and courage and faith. Faith in others as well 
as in ourselves. It stimulates our aspirations 
Eouses us to action and incites us to greater 
work and to be inspired by their examples is 
to live with the best of men and to mix in the 
best of company. Good books live in the ear, 
like music that can never be forgotten. The 
power of all the griefs and trials of man is hid- 
den beneath its covers. There are men whose 
lives are far greater than their speeches and 
whose personal character is far greater than 
their deeds. One may say too much even on 
the best subjects. There are men who are de- 
fective in many ways who endeavor to make 
amends with eloquence of a speech. Ofttimes 
in casting about for a man we find only clothes 
under these conditions; few people who have 



16 INTRODUCTORY. 

lived with a man know what to remark about 
him. Shakespeare was great, but it required 
two hundred years after he was dead for people 
to recognize the fact There have been great 
men who influenced the life of their time, whose 
reputation has been much greater with pos- 
terity than it was with their contemporaries. 
While books are among the best companions 
of old age they are often the best inspirers in 
youth. The first book that makes a deep im- 
pression on a young man's mind often consti- 
tutes an epoch in his life. It may fill the heart, 
stimulate enthusiasm, and by directing his ef- 
forts into unexpected channels, permanently 
influence his character. The book in which we 
form an intimacy with is a new friend. Whose 
mind is riper and wiser than our own may thus 
form an intimacy with a new friend, whose 
of a life. It may sometimes almost be regarded 
in the light of new birth; it's the author's hope 
as to so inspire an actual friendship as of a man 
for a man. 

This country was never in such sore need of 
men as to-day. Most men are but the ashes in an 
urn. Sympathy between thought and thought 
is more intimate and vital than that between 
thought and action. Thought is linked to 



INTRODUCTORY. 17 

thought as flame kindles into flame. Tribute 
to heroism is like burning incense in a marble 
monument. Words, ideas, feelings with the pro- 
gress of time, harden into substance. Things, 
bodies, actions, moulder away or melt into 
sound; into these are not only a man's actions 
effaced but vanish with him. His virtues and 
generous qualities die with him also. His in- 
tellect only is immortal and bequeathed unim- 
paired to posterity. Words are the only things 
that last forever. Hence by repeating a 
Scripture quotation, that words fittingly spoken, 
are like apples of gold in pictures of silver. We 
leave the reader to ponder over the pages and 
read between the lines the sentiment of expres- 
sion that enabled the author to entitle "Means 
to Ends"with permission to correct an oversight 
in computing the pages. We are compelled to 
increase the surface and diminish the pages to 
correspond with the reams in paper, as book- 
making is an arduous task, we trust our efforts 
will meet with your approval and be the means 
of causing the face of nature to blossom as the 
rose and to smile in prosperous abundance to 
the end. 

Sincerely yours, 

2 H. H. DeWeese. 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 

IF I were permitted to retrace my footsteps in 
life's journey, there would be less periods 
and more commas in this book ; but if I were 
permitted to do so I could not have written this. 
We are all creatures of circumstances, to be pit- 
ied more than censured in our weakness and 
follies in vain pursuits. One's surrondings and 
occupation generally mould the character of the 
individual as much so as the longing of the happy 
boyhood days. With cares and great responsi- 
bilities of those who cared for us, little by little 
we gather up the threads of life and weave them 
into personal attainments of character in per- 
son; some are scarlet, some have silvery threads, 
some are varied, some are red, some are brown, 
some are as the pure gold, some are changeable, 
some are as the azure blue, some are dyed in 
deepest black, some in faded colors, it all de- 
pends upon the fabric used in the chain of life. 
As the very best fabrics obtainable in wearing ap- 
parel, are of linen chain and woolen filled, these 
are fast colors and most durable. Such goods 
are firm, hold their shape and never shrink ; men 

(18) 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 19 

and women conceived in nature of such charac- 
ter are the models after Christ's own image. 
So to be right, and to do right, we must be started 
right. The beginning is in the home, mother is 
the designor of your fate. Show me a model man 
or woman, and I will vouch for a model mother. 
Wealth is not the highest attainment in the model 
life. Modesty and virtue outweigh both, fine 
silver and gold. Our model men and women rise 
from the more humble walks of life, and so on, 
all through time and eternity. As the older one 
grows the more difficult to teach, as the boy 
fathers the man, industrial training in youth is 
essential to model men and women. Physical de- 
velopment is of greater importance than mental 
training ; if one is not physically strong, they are 
mentally weak, so phycial strength is first in im- 
portance. How best to acquire that is ardent 
toil. The farm offers the best training in youth 
in both mental and physical development of mind 
and body. In illustrating the different charac- 
ters in this book it is the hope and aspiration 
of the writer to so impress the reader of the friv- 
olous, ambitious nature instilled into the minds 
of youth to study the arts of science, and learn 
to make a living without toil. That is a stum- 
bling block to catch dupes with means in order 



20 MEANS TO ENDS. 

to divert the financial calamity in ambition, it 
naturally absorbs aspiration, hence the title 
" Means to Ends." I have seen so much as see- 
ing is believing that my earnest plea with the 
boys and girls is, to stick to the farm, and re- 
member that small gains of tranquility of 
mind give the longest years, and most happiness. 
Also aspire to excel, don't disgrace the family 
record with any act of yours; read good books, 
study nature and embrace Christianity, and your 
life will be as sweet and as fresh as morning dew 
in desert lands. The writer has experienced 
about all the changes in life that human nature 
is heir to, which leads me to the solemn fact, to be 
your best friend. Born in the state of Ohio, Mi- 
ami county, in that beautiful, rich and fertile 
Miami valley, on a farm midway between towns 
Troy and Piqua, four miles from each; Troy be- 
ing the county seat of Miami county, of good 
parentage and industrious. There were five girls 
and four boys, I being the fifth, there were two 
boys and two girls my seniors. I have a faint 
recollection of the closing of the war. As the 
Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton and Michigan 
railroad passed through my father's farm near 
the buildings. The farm comprised seventy- 
seven acres of sugar tree land. I can remember 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 21 

of the mail on the flag staff, as the few that 
were not in the army gathered and raised a large 
flag-staff, and floated the stars and stripes to the 
breezes. Each day the newspapers were thrown 
off the train and placed in the box on the flag- 
staff, and at the noon hour all the neighbors 
would come and get their paper, so eager were 
they for war news. Before the close of the war 
my father sold the farm and bought a larger one 
two miles south of Piqua, Ohio, and went in debt 
seven thousand dollars. Two hundred and 
twelve acres, it bordered on the Miami river, the 
dwelling stood about half way between the river 
and the road, as pikes were few, and what was, 
were toll pikes. Just across the river was a large 
linseed oil mill which was run by wafer power 
with a large river dam for water storage, and 
just below that, a large distillery, with a capac- 
ity of six hundred bushels of corn per day. The 
Miami and Erie canal passed by them both. The 
oil mill was between the river and canal, with 
tramway built over the canal. The new farm 
was considerable out of repair, the land was 
limestone soil and very productive, and a great 
many surface stone was carted off; in addition, 
my father operated the stone quarry, which con- 
sisted of the finest blue stone on the farm. The 



22 MEANS TO ENDS. 

oil mill, the distillery, the surrounding quarries, 
made it a very busy place, both in summer and 
winter ; there were hundreds of canal boats plied 
between Toledo, Ohio and Cincinnati. They 
freighted grain, lumber, stone, wood, merchan- 
dise, in fact, everything in demand. 

The distillery would always pay about two 
cents more for corn to the farmer than the ware- 
house would, because they had to boat it from 
Piqua when the farmers did not supply the de- 
mand. There was in addition, many cattle and 
hogs that were fattened from the stills of the 
distillery. The products of the farm were in 
great demand right at the door. I can remem- 
ber of mother sending me to the distillery with 
a small tin bucket to get yeast from the yeast 
still, then mother would take corn meal and mix 
it up in some way and make it into cakes and dry 
them in the sun. They were used in home baking. 
This was all indulged in by the surrounding 
country. The manager of the distillery never re- 
fused, it seemed all like one great family. Finally, 
and all of a sudden, the black inky smoke of the 
large smoke-stack that answered as the farmers 
barometer, for when the smoke rolled out and 
curled down to the ground, that denoted rain, 
but when it went straight up that denoted dry 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 23 

weather, that was the signal for miles around. 
The cause of the fire being drawn, for it run day 
and night, as well as the oil mill, was that a 
whiskey trust had been formed and that the trust 
had bought this one's capacity at ten cents per 
bushel or sixty dollars per day, this continued 
until all the tubs and vats had fallen to pieces 
and rotted away, then it was useless ; it was never 
started after that from that day to this. The oil 
mill continued until the oil trust was formed, 
then that was shut down. The machinery was 
taken out and the building rotted away. The 
combining of means had brought all these to the 
end, this crippled the canal business, and legis- 
lation for railroad interests against canals has 
about ruined that traffic, home consumption has 
been destroyed and concentrated in localities, re- 
mote from production of raw material to create 
traffic in transportation. It has left the distil- 
lery and oil mill emblems of " Means to Ends." 
My father up to this time prospered, had paid 
for the farm and two others, and a bank account 
of eighteen hundred dollars. Money was begin- 
ning to accumulate all over the country and seek- 
ing investments, farm and household machinery 
were beginning to appear and indulged in by a 
few, sewing machines, harvesting machines, car- 



24 MEANS TO ENDS. 

riages and buggies were being sold at fabulous 
prices. About the first labor-saving machine my 
father purchased, was a Dorsey self rake reaper. 
Two hundred and twenty-five dollars was the 
price paid for it. It was, I must say, a durable 
one, and simplicity was the model of construc- 
tions ; it was about one of the first self rake reap- 
ers in the neighborhood and did good work. My 
father used this about twelve years and would 
exchange work with my uncle and adjoining 
neighbor, and average from one hundred to 
one hundred and fifty acres each season, not 
mentioning the oats and flax harvest. The 
wheat harvest would last from ten days to 
two weeks, we always had five binders and 
two shockers, and cut from twelve to fifteen 
acres per day. -Once in a great while eigh- 
teen acres was harvested in one day, this was 
exceptional, always having change of teams 
every two hours, as such time as the weather 
would indicate; extremely hot weather oftener. 
It was great tactics to divide off the stations 
equally around a twenty acre field, so as not to 
have some larger than others. It was considered 
a disgrace to have the reaper catch you before 
you had your station bound out, so that there was 
some hustling done to prevent that. 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 25 

It was my task to carry the water when a boy, 
and my two older brothers. would combine them- 
selves into a man, they were small, but the two 
would make a hand binding the sheaves. My 
father always allowed us wages when harvesting. 
For the two neighbors the price averaged two 
dollars per day, I received fifty cents per day as 
water boy. Kegularly at nine o'clock in the fore- 
noon, I would go to the house and get a lunch 
and a bucket of vinegar drink, the lunch would 
consist of raspberry pies, hot rolls buttered, and 
cold ham and cookies, all home-made. Five 
o'clock suppers, and then work till sun set. 

It was only a year or two until my oldest 
brother thought he could go it alone, then I was 
paired off with my brother and we two made one 
hand. We dissolved, and at the age of fourteen 
I was making my way with the rest as a harvest 
hand. There was a great deal of speculation as 
to how I could do the work, of course I was small, 
but when the wheat was very heavy, the bundles 
were more than I could reach around, I would 
sometimes divide them and again I would get 
astraddle of them, but the secret of it was I guess, 
my father did not cut as wide a swath on my sta- 
tion as some of the rest, but I made my hand and 
the same number of acreage was always in shock 



26 MEANS TO ENDS. 

when the day's work was done. Then I received 
my two dollars per day away from home. Some- 
times at the latter part of harvest the grain 
would get very ripe, then it was harder as the 
straw was harsh and brittle, which made it dif- 
ficult in tieing. We always had about one and 
a half hours at noon and the harvest dinners that 
were spread would do credit to any King, they 
were as natural and commonplace as the fertile 
soil produced it. No one gorged or commented, 
it was simply a plain common sense country din- 
ner and home-made. I remember one time we 
had finished about a two weeks harvest with the 
three farms at noon. As reapers were scarce, an 
elderly farmer adjoining had eight acres of 
wheat, it was very heavy and ripe ; he came over, 
and wanted my father to cut it for him. My 
father told him, that the boys were all tired and 
did not believe they wanted any more. He told 
all of us, seven in all, that he would give each, 
one dollar and twenty-five cents for the job if we 
would help him out, we told father we would do 
it. 

We started in about twelve o'clock noon, and 
told him to drive lively and we would keep out of 
the way, he did so and when the five o'clock sup- 
per bell rang we were finishing the eight acres. 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 27 

We earned our money all right and our supper 
also. 

The next improvement that struck our home 
was a Singer Sewing Machine, this was the straw 
that broke the cameFs back, and cost ninety dol- 
lars. And with it came fashion plates of frills 
and flounces. My two elder sisters were al- 
most young ladies,and the agent brought his city 
wife along in order to show and teach my sisters 
how to do all these fashionable things, and effect 
the sale. So wild was the country on fashion, 
that the country litreally swarmed with Singer 
and Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine agents. 
I can yet see the wagons traversing every country 
road, you could not look in any direction, but 
what you might see one or the other. Then home- 
spun clothing began to give way to more fash- 
ionable prints and expenditures began to in- 
crease and harvest dinners decrease, because 
fashion and custom was sowing the seed of dis- 
content in the ambitious nature to rival in dis- 
play in the new fads and fashion, and the flocks 
began to bleet the last forlorn hope of exchange 
from basking in the sunshine, in the green fields 
and meadows, and hillsides to the slaughter pen 
and the swish swash of the old water wheel that 
turned the crank that operated the loom, that 



28 MEANS TO ENDS. 

converted the fleece to flannel in exchange for the 
wool from the carcass that enriched the soil to 
feed us and clothe our backs, for the chief clothing 
of my sisters up to this time was plaid flannels, 
red and black were the fast colors of these fab- 
rics. The boys clothing was jeans, and wool was 
exchanged at the little country woolen mill for 
them all. All home-made. For summer, hick- 
ory shirts, overalls and bedticking suspenders, 
and a straw hat constituted the wearing apparel. 
We had a change, and Monday mornings they 
were always clean, and if any rents, they were 
darned. Mother clothed us, and kept up the 
table with chickens, butter and eggs, nine chil- 
dren, all the proceeds of the farm was clear. 
There was on the farm previous to this one 
twenty acres of sugar camp, we never bought any 
store sugar or molasses. My father cut the tim- 
ber off the twenty acres, two Germans cut the 
wood at fifty cents a cord, and at that time cross- 
cut saws were not thought of. To chop every stick 
with an ax would to-day want for labor to per- 
form the work. Twelve hundred cords, were 
taken off the twenty acres and all sugar tree 
wood. To fell a tree and chop with the ax, cuts 
four feet long, split into cord wood, would seem 
an endless task in this day and age. The wood 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 29 

was sold to the railroad for fuel at one dollar and 
sixty cents per cord, as coal was not dreamed of 
at that time. One of those wood-burning engines 
would be a curiosity run over the roads to-day, 
as much as the Indians were when railroads in- 
vaded the western prairies. My father was a prac- 
tical farmer and mother was a model housekeeper. 
As they had spent about twenty-five years up to 
this time in frugal habits of accumulating all they 
had, which was considerable more than any of 
their offspring will ever be able to do with all the 
improvements and socalled advantages over the 
meager conditions of their accumulations. Little 
did they dream of such reverses in so short a 
period. Siberia in time will be a paradise in 
comparison to the ambitions of this country, if 
nothing prevents the element of power to bring 
it about. 

My father's next venture in the way of im- 
provement was a corn planter. I can remember 
the agent who sold the planter. His name was 
Wright. He was hare-lipped and one could 
scarcely understand what he said. The price 
was seventy dollars, and the first we planted 
never came up, because the agent operated 
the planter, and it was the wonder of the 
age. The corn was planted about eight in- 



30 MEANS TO ENDS. 

ches deep, while the seed all germinated, it 
never came to the surface. I remember we 
planted sixty acres and sold it again for 
the price paid. So eager were farmers to 
have one, as only a few were made. I did 
most of the dropping, and farmers would hire 
our planter, but I had to go with it. My father 
charged fifteen cents per acre for the planter, and 
m J P av was one dollar and fifty cents per day. 
One season I dropped two hundred acres and was 
very t^red at last. But after a few years, almost 
every farmer had a planter of his own. 

Large factories sprang up like mushrooms, 
boys left the farm to work in them, everything 
was booming and the country swarmed with 
agents and eager buyers. The acerage of cereals 
and expenditures increased, and the yields de- 
creased. The increased facilities for handling 
products stimulated greater activity of range, 
which caused constant cropping that impover- 
ished the soil until the actual expenditure ex- 
ceeded the receipts. The actual results of the 
prosperity can never be replaced with double 
the gain of means and the depravity of moral- 
ity and physical nature will predominate and 
show marked increase with each generation to 
the end. 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 31 

The next purchase in luxury was a carriage. 
Carriage factories were beginning to develop at 
an alarming rate. Our conveyance consisted of 
a three-seated two horse spring wagon. It had 
been repainted so often, the paint seemed a quar- 
ter of an inch thick. It was generally painted 
in contrasting colors. The gear was yellow, 
striped with black with black and red tinge; 
the body black with red trimmings; the seats up- 
holstered with oilcloth, and had been in use for 
twenty years. The city carriage maker had 
drove out from the town several times to 
effect the sale and finally succeeded. The 
carriage was purchased for four hundred 
dollars. Our farm teams were good, but 
the old spring wagon harness and the farm 
team aid not correspond with the carriage, so a 
span of bays were purchased for four hundred 
collars, and also a new set of harness. Then our 
clothes were not good enough and store clothes 
were bought, and when the outfit was complete, 
the eighteen hundred dollar bank account was 
considerably reduced and impending luxuries 
were being talked of. It was only a few years 
until there was on the farm, the carriage 
and four buggies. For when my sisters mar- 
ried, they each received from home a sew- 



32 MEANS TO ENDS. 

ing machine, cow, and household outfit. 
Mother always kept a large flock of geese, 
and kept it up until each had a feather-bed, 
nine in all, and when the boys were twenty- 
one years of age, they received a horse, 
buggy, harness, and one hundred dollars in 
money. Buggies then cost three hundred and 
twenty-five dollars, so the outfit was equivalent 
to five hundred dollars, and my sisters received 
about the same. Nine children amounted to quite 
a sum, forty-five hundred dollars. A few years 
afterward my father gave each of the children one 
thousand dollars apiece excepting myself, there 
was some quarreling about mine amongst my 
brothers and sisters, claiming I left home before 
I was of age and that I was not entitled to as 
much as those who had; so to settle the matter I 
received only eight hundred dollars, and the 
buggy I took in cash and afterward bought one 
for two hundred and twenty-five dollars. They 
sort of had me on the run because I asserted my- 
self on some matters not congenial to the elder 
brothers and sisters, and it mostly originated 
through some boyish trades we had amongst our- 
selves, that worsted them somewhat. One 
trade in particular I mention and has caused me 
to laugh a great many times. My elder brother 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. S3 

had been in the habit of always wanting to trade 
with me, and then after a day or two, would back 
out, I always let him do the trading and when 
his bid suited me, I of course, would take 
him up. This time I fooled him. We had a 
man working for us that wanted to get 
married, and I had a pair of pantaloons he 
wanted for his wedding costume. He traded 
me his watch worth, I presume, seven or 
eight dollars. One day along in early spring 
it had rained and was very wet, I got my 
father's consent to go to my uncle, it was 
about six miles from home. I rode horse-back, 
no saddle, and barefooted. My hickory shirt, 
straw hat, and bedticking suspenders was my 
attire. But for Sunday dress I had used my 
harvest money in clothing and had quite a fine 
wardrobe for the Sabbath. I even went so far 
as to buy two fine white shirts. That was 
considered quite extravagant. I was con- 
sidered too proud; my sisters even refused 
to laundry them. I guess that is what pro- 
moted the steam laundry. But I arrived at 
my uncle's just as they were at dinner. 
After we had partaken of dinner, my cousin and 
I went out to the barn. He had an old sorrel 

3 



34 MEANS TO ENDS. 

mare of which he had told me about, and which 
had been meandering through my mind for some 
time. I did not tell my father of my errand, nor 
did he ask me, as he was a man that said but little 
but meant all he said. I looked the nag over and 
offered him the watch for the mare. He took me 
up so quick that I thought perhaps I had made 
a mistake. She was so stiff that she could 
scarcely move. I did not tarry long there, for I 
knew I had a job to get her home, and a long way 
to go. He gave me a halter with quite a lengthy 
rope to it and I started. I got home about sunset 
and was very tired, because the old nag pulled so 
hard. My mother was not pleased with my pur- 
chase, in fact she insisted that my father should 
make me take her off the farm as it was a dis- 
grace. My brothers laughed at me, I did not say 
anything, and thought that those who laughed 
last laughed best. I turned her loose in the or- 
chard. My father never said a word to me. 
In about six weeks I got up one Sunday morning 
and when I went to feed I saw a very spry little 
colt racing around in the orchard. The old nag 
limbered up and shed off sleek and fat. My 
eldest brother and I were plowing together and 
ofttimes we would sit on the plough beams and 
talk to rest our teams, as they were soft for 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 35 

spring work, and so broke them by degrees. 
My brother had three large steers running on 
pasture, in the woods and clearing; one day 
he said he would trade me one of his steers 
for the mare and colt. I told him I did 
not want to trade nor did I. But in a week or so, 
he offered two, I refused; but I thought when 
you say three I am going to trade. I said noth- 
ing and sure enough he finally said he would give 
all three. There I parted with the mare and colt. 
There was a stock buyer that lived about one and 
a half miles from home. That evening after 
my team was cared for, I slipped off bare- 
footed and ran all the way to the man's 
place so that I would not be gone long, 
and I told him I owned the three head of 
cattle, and that I would accept his offer, eighty 
dollars. He said he would look at them again 
in the morning. I told him where I could be 
found on the farm, and if all right, bring the 
money along, but not pay me in my brother's 
presence. I received the money in the morning 
and that afternoon my brother told me as usual, 
he did not want the old mare and colt. I told 
him he was too late that they were gone. He 
complained to my father. He said nothing 
to me but told my brother not to trade 



36 MEANS TO ENDS. 

with me, and this, that, and the other, was 
one of the reasons I left the farm, or rather 
my father thought best to deport me. Now 
I only write this as a moral to illustrate 
personal character and individuality, and to 
illustrate farther, factions between farmers as 
a class and laborers. I did none of the 
trading but rather discouraged it but ott- 
imes success proves our greatest failures and 
failures success, but these little barterings 
we had together only demonstrates the strife 
created in traffic, it all depends upon whose 
ox is gored. It has almost become the opinion 
of the writer that it is a misfortune to be 
born an expert in agriculture or any other 
calling because of the trials in advance. 
Additional expenditures on the farm footed up 
thousands of dollars. A large bank barn was 
built forty-six by seventy, twenty-two foot posts 
from the floor to the plates; stone wall on both 
ends and back, and the material all off the farm, 
except the siding. The shingles were oak riven 
in the woods one year in advance, also the floor- 
ing was linn and grooved and tongue driven in 
after laid. The graneries were of seasoned 
ash, plained, plowed and grooved. 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 37 

Stock sheds were built adjoining the barn 
on the north. Tool shed was in the basement 
of the barn. Cow stable, horse stable, corn 
crib for feed, that was filled from trap doors 
from the driveway in the barn floor; the wheat 
and oats bins the same. The heavy timbers 
were from the timber on the farm, hewed and 
scored during the winter; drawn to the place 
of structure during winter on sleds and framed 
in early spring. Mother boarded all the men 
and slept them. The barn was generally filled 
with grain, barely having space to set machine 
for threshing. There were two back double 
doors as well as front. It required two sets of 
machine to thresh out the barn. There was 
spaced off from the overjet of back of barn 
twenty-five feet with board fence, that kept the 
stock from the barn. Two large jets were built 
over the space from each pair of doors and when 
the grain was threshed these were to keep the 
alley way clear. The barnyard was large, with 
two heavy poles, or young trees were set one 
hundred feet or more back from the barnyard 
fence straight with the middle of the rear 
doors. In threshing, the straw was made in 
piles on the shoot and rope and pulleys were 
attached to the pole, one at the bottom and in 



38 MEANS TO ENDS. 

the beginning, up ten or twelve feet from the 
ground. On the end of the rope was a hickory 
pole, about sixteen feet long, attached to that 
was a smaller rope, about thirty feet long; the 
pole was run under the pile of straw on the 
shoot. The little rope was run around at the 
base under the pole at the end and fastened in 
the end of the pole with a hook in the ring in 
the end of the pole, that the main drive rope 
was fastened to, with a horse at the other end. 
It was always my task to ride the horse, to 
stack the straw. Huge straw ricks were 
built side by side, that stock would run to all 
winter. Salt would be thrown in them and the 
stock seemed to relish the straw; it also kept 
them contented, with the commodious sheds on 
the north, making very comfortable quartern 
for the stock. We generally kept eight to ten 
milk cows, besides a number of steers; calves 
were seldom sold, but converted into beef. 
Wheat was always mowed away and left there 
until it had went through the sweat and never 
sold from the machine, but run into the grain- 
eries and sold when the market would warrant. 
Sometimes, almost invariably, the market was 
highest. There was always one mow filled with 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 39 

straw for stable use and plenty of fodder was 
housed for the stock. Then a new corn crib 
was built that would hold two thousand bush- 
els of ear corn, with hog-pen adjoining and 
built from the timber on the farm. There was 
a large stream of running water, flowing di- 
rectly through the center of the farm. Father 
straightened that and made a driveway along 
the side of that to the farm buildings, as the 
buildings were quite a distance from the road, 
on a beautiful knoll. The stream passed the 
house through solid rock with a natural water 
fall of five or six feet. I can yet hear that roar 
in time of flood. The dam on the river was 
about fifty rods from the house. There 
abounded all species of fish and plentiful at 
that, until paper mills and other improve- 
ments began to empty their refuse into the 
river. Then it was different; prosperity heeded 
no such small affairs; fish had to give way 
to greed and the struggle of might against 
right was on. These are stubborn facts that 
confront us with such conditions in positions as 
to baffle the methods in activity of such means 
to end, that has caused the writer to observe 
and meditate in thought that 



40 MEANS TO ENDS. 

The simplest deed may tell the truly brave. 
The smallest skill may serve a life to save, 
The smallest drop the thirsty may relieve. 
The slightest look may make a heart to grieve, 
Naught is so small but that it may contain 
The rose of pleasure or the thorn of pain. 

Yery often has the writer, when a boy far 
from home, domiciled in some hotel or board- 
ing house amongst strangers, with his eyes and 
ears open, speaking only when spoken to. Ke- 
membering one Sunday morning, in a boarding 
house, just after a late breakfast, there were 
quite a number in the sitting room; one of the 
gentlemen had a banjo and he played and sang 
the old familiar song "The Old Folks at Home." 
He sang it very softly and the stern faces in 
that crowd could easily be traced; so solemn 
was the tune that tears trickled down care- 
worn cheeks; it caused me to think of home, as 
our dwelling house was commodious and com- 
fortable. Ten rooms in all with large porch 
on east side, with grape arbor inclosing the 
front; large commodious cellar; as building 
stone was to be had at the expense of quarrying, 
all the steps to both passage ways to the cellar 
was solid masonry, inside and out. When the 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 41 

farm was purchased there had been recently 
built a two-story addition of four large rooms 
and cellar. The other part was of log, and 
newly sided with the addition. In the log part 
was a large open fire-place that answered for 
heating purposes. In winter time the floors 
were carpeted with home-made rag carpets, 
excepting the parlor, which was the sacred 
room of the house, used only on special occa- 
sions; then great care was exercised as to how 
it was occupied. The cellar in the winter 
would do credit to any county fair for display, 
for almost every fruit and vegetable of the day 
was represented there in some form or another. 
Some in bins, some in jars, some in cans, some 
in barrles, onions on strings, Bell Flower, and 
Kambo apples, cider and vinegar, molasses, 
both sorghum and maple, potatoes and pump- 
kins, also squashes and sweet potatoes, mince 
meats, canned fruits, jellies and preserves, 
sour krout, home-made hominy, pickles, man- 
goes and cabbage, pickled pork, sugar-cured 
hams and shoulders, sausage and dried beef, 
milk and butter, quinces and pears, grape and 
currant wines, that was aged until beads would 
form until they would sparkle; lard by the 
hundred weight; the garret was filled with 



42 MEANS TO ENDS. 

herbs that hung from the rafters in bunches, 
sage and mint herbs of all kinds; dried apples 
and peaches, pears and pumpkins; they were all 
home-made and home-grown on the farm. We 
slept on feather beds, with straw ticks beneath, 
the bedsteads being corded; once in a great 
time the cords would slip from the knobs on the 
round side rails, which was about four inches 
in diameter, then we would find ourselves all 
in a heap. Home-made blankets, comforts and 
quilts would consist our covering; some of 
these quilts would do credit to any sleeping 
compartment. The blankets were all wool, no 
shoddy; the wardrobes were filled with all such. 
There were nine beds in the house and all of 
such material. The log part of the house was 
only a story and a half. One of the upstairs 
rooms was very low; in the summer time that 
room was for us boys. There generally were 
fifteen or twenty bags of seed corn stored there 
also. As each of us had a separate trunk, these 
with two beds, made up the furniture in that 
room. In the winter we occupied a larger one. 
My younger brother was the youngest of the 
family. Father and mother always slept in the 
sitting room, where the large fire-place was and 
a trundle bed was beneath theirs; at night this 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 43 

was drawn out and the very small ones slept 
there. Each one had his or her chores to do, 
mornings and evenings. Evenings were al- 
ways spent around the fire-place, with the huge 
and-irons and back logs and brick hearth. 
After supper we generally had a pan of apples 
and a pitcher of cider, but the minute the clock 
would strike eight all the children would retire. 
I don't remember of ever hearing father or 
mother tell us it was our bed time. It made 
no odds who was around, and if strangers were 
about, you would never hear a word from any 
of us; you would not have known we were 
there. We were taught not to speak without 
being spoken to and that little folks were to be 
seen, not heard. Four o'clock in the morning 
was the hour to arise and we boys were always 
first up. We would make the fires and light 
our lanterns; the feed stables were cleaned, 
horses groomed, all before breakfast. We gen- 
erally ate breakfast about half -past five o'clock 
and after breakfast would water the stock and 
saw wood until school time; get kindling ready 
for evening and then walk over a mile and a 
half to school. We generally got in school 
about one week before the holidays, as our corn 
crops were generally large and we did the work 



44 MEANS TO ENDS. 

nearly all ourselves. Between two and three 
thousand bushels would be the average amount. 
When in school Saturdays we would go to the 
woods and get the summer stove wood ready 
and clean up the fallen timber in the woods for 
sugar wood; we would set it up on end, after it 
was split, any length would do for the furnace 
and by March it would be dry. Bough wood 
was always used for that. When sugar time 
came we would then bring our books home un- 
til the next winter. We generally went to 
school about three months in the year. Bead- 
ing, writing, arithmetic and geography would 
about consist our studies, with spelling, five 
studies. We learned from McGuffey's books. 
We, also — the last two or three terms — had 
United States history. Life was too short with 
us for grammar or algebra. One set of books 
lasted the whole family, as they were handed 
down from one to the other. Mother would 
cover them with cloth to keep from soiling 
them. I remember on one occasion one of our 
neighbor farmer boys in after years attended 
college in the preparatory for the ministry. 
He and I were rivals in attention to one young 
lady. While I was down East he called and 
spent Saturday and Sunday with the folks. 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 45 

They asked him what sort of a fellow I was. 
Well, he stated that Harry was a very nice 
young man, but that his education was limited. 
That all the education I ever received was at 
Peterson's school-house. That was the name 
of the district school. He had been to college 
and took that as the basis of argument against 
my ignorance. This was at the supper table, 
and in passing him the dried beef he helped 
himself with a fork and cut it with his knife. 
What he had gained in book-learning he lacked 
in manners. The last account I had of him, 
he was cutting logs for some lumber firm. It 
is well to remember, " that he who discredits 
his fellow-man also discredits himself." I will 
frankly say that of the nine children no one 
could say aught against them as long as 
they were under the parental roof. My sisters 
were all model wives and had model husbands, 
we all worked and could perform most any 
labor that anyone else could, and as much of it. 
We knew about as much as anyone else, and 
obtained it at little cost. It was generally com- 
puted that it costs about five thousand dollars 
to rear a child to maturity in the most common 
sense way. So don't never say your parents 
never did anything for you. You never paid 



46 MEANS TO ENDS. 

your obligations to them. Yet it has always 
been a strange and peculiar state of af- 
fairs that parents may rear a large family and 
care for them. But let the old folks come to 
want and invariably there is not one of the 
children who would care for them. This seems 
strange, but is true. There are exceptional 
cases. The ingratitude of humanity is great. 
One may struggle along through life and meet 
with many reverses but about the time one gets 
ready to live they are old enough to die, or the 
infirmities of age despoil the fruit of life's 
success. Most marriageable people of the pres- 
ent age want to begin life where the old folks 
left off. It is likened unto a balloon, they must 
come down. When my father was married 
seventy-five dollars was his worth in worldly 
goods. Thirty years of ardent toil to accumu- 
late what he had at present. This was doing 
well, but just at the opportune time my father 
met with a serious accident. In the stone- 
quarry with several men employed in the 
quarry, they were at a close place and at the 
noon hour they had been working out a corner 
and required blasting, they had loaded one 
and from some cause with the fuse it failed to 
explode the charge of powder. My father un- 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 47 

dertook to drill this out to recharge. We often 
did this by keeping plenty of water in the drill- 
hole that had been tamped with brick-dust 
and crushed lime-stone. The boss quarryman 
assisted and was drilling. My father was in a 
rush and asked to let him drill to spell the 
others. The first blow of the drill caused the 
premature discharge of the blast which came 
up into my father's face. His arms and one 
hand were badly lacerated, one eye ruined, and 
there was a cut over the pupil of the other. It 
was for many months that he hovered between 
life and death. While the laborers were pour- 
ing in water they escaped without a scratch. 
This almost put an end to business with father, 
the quarry was never operated to any extent 
since. My brother and I worked it some, but 
the earth was all hauled back and farmed over 
afterwards. This changed things in the old 
home. My two older brothers took charge of 
the farm on shares, which left me sort of an 
outcast. 

My uncle and I took a county contract of 
building a levee, which amounted to several 
thousand dollars. We were to have eleven 
cents per yard, and the soil was scooped from 
the fields. We figured closely and calculated 



48 MEANS TO ENDS. 

each team would move sixty yards per day. My 
father went on our bonds, and this was done to 
give me employment more than anything else. 
Well we were three months on the work, and 
after we had settled all bills we divided forty 
dollars between us. We would have done bet- 
ter but our estimates were in jeopardy and were 
compelled to discount them to outsiders that 
generally hang around such public works and 
work just such schemes to get the profits. 
When that was done my uncle came to our 
house on a visit, from the state of Kansas, and 
my father and he made out that Kansas was a 
good place for a young man. I was only about 
sixteen years of age; so it was arranged that I 
was to go back with him. I did not care much 
to go, but I listened to my father and went I 
was to meet him in Delphos, Ohio, and we were 
to start from there together. 

I left home on Saturday and intended to 
stay in Delphos over Sunday with him. When I 
got there late Saturday eve he had gone to Ft. 
Wayne, Indiana, I could get no train to Ft. 
Wayne until Monday morning. When I got 
there he had left for Hutchison, Kansas. 
I did not know what to do; finally I went 
to the ticket office and inquired if anyone 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 49 

had left from there to the above named 
town. The ticket agent stated there had and of- 
fered to sell me a ticket at the same rate thirty- 
two dollars was the price of the ticket. 
Then I asked the agent if there was any way I 
could catch my uncle. He stated I might wire 
on ahead and get him to stop off. He did 
this for me and I boarded the next train 
out over the Wabash Kailroad. I was sit- 
ting in the seat, thinking of more than I 
would dare say, when the conductor of the train 
came through the coach with a telegram inquiring 
if there was any one by the name of Brown in the 
coach. He had passed me and the thought struck 
me that it might be from my uncle and I asked 
permission to read the address. I told him that 
was for me. The conductor wanted to know why 
I did not say so, I told him that my name was not 
Brown, but DeWeese, as the telegram directed. 
It plainly read DeWeese. I thought conductors 
never made mistakes, but I have changed my 
mind ; they are just like all the rest of us, as liable 
to them as any one else. I opened the telegram 
and it read : Wait for you at Danville, 111. Then 
I felt better. When the train rolled into the 
depot he and his family were there. I thought of 

4 



50 MEANS TO ENDS. 

home a great many times and wondered why I 
was not permitted to stay and some of the older 
ones go. I never had been from home and knew 
but little of the world. I made the best of it, 
and when I left my father told me that if I 
bought a farm and did not have enough money he 
would send me some. I had about nine hundred 
dollars. I only took one hundred and fifty dol- 
lars with me. On the way out two smooth-look- 
ing young men got to talking to me and told me 
they were leaders in a Bible class in Chicago. My 
uncle and the conductor saw them and motioned 
to me to come to them. When I attempted to get 
out of the seat they did not want me to go, but I 
went. I found out that they were a couple of 
crooks that infested western trains at that time. 
That was in '79. The prairie was but little 
broken and comparatively wild. I saw Indians 
and Buffalo meat by the ton. After I 
was there awhile my uncle wanted to sell 
me his farm. Everyone there wanted to 
sell. Everything was booming on ahead in 
establishing county seats and bonding every 
county for all its worth to get a railroad 
to the county seat. It looked to me as 
though some one would have to pay their bonds, 
as the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fee Kailroad 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 51 

was selling them into New York as fast as is- 
sued. I wrote my father all this and finally he 
told me I had better come back home and 
run a stone-quarry. I came home and worked 
that summer, and then I was hired out to 
a groceryman at four dollars per month and 
board. He had been a minister of the Gos- 
pel, but when he undertook to mix stale 
butter with pork lard and then try to sell 
it for the real article, it would not work. 
That was taken to his home and made up in 
biscuits for family use. I have never had any 
love for biscuits since. The odor was enough for 
me. I only staid one month and again came 
home and went into the cornfield, but in a few 
days I had an offer from another grocery firm 
across from where I formerly acted in the capac- 
ity of clerk for one month. I might say my 
clerkship at the first named place was peculiar. 
The first work I did was to saw one cord of hick- 
ory cord-wood in the basement. I would, be- 
tween times, pump the coal oil from the barrel 
to the larger tank in the grocery. I was strong 
for my age and could up-end a filled barrel of 
coal oil in the grocery without help. I kept up 
the fires and carried all the wood out of the cellar, 
as I was to receive four dollars a month and my 



52 MEANS TO ENDS. 

board. The proprietor resided about one mile 
from the grocery, in the suburbs, as the town was 
one of about four thousand inhabitants. It was 
my duty to deliver the groceries, take care of 
the horses and cattle, feed the swine, arise about 
five o'clock in the morning, walk over to the gro- 
cery, open up the store and wait for the propri- 
etor and his two sons to come from home. I 
would then walk back and get my breakfast, do 
all the chores about the place and take the horse 
and wagon over with me. I remember the boys 
would get me to wait on the young ladies in the 
store, and when they would pass me behind the 
counter, pull my hair on the back of my head, as 
that would cause me to make a very ugly face. 
All this was new to me ; but there was one very 
sensible young lady amongst them who, I no- 
ticed, was my friend. It sort of roused my ire, 
and finally I told them they must cease it, and 
that immediately, or there would be trouble in 
camp. They thought it was so much fun they 
would try it again, but they never did after- 
wards, because they had no desire to. One 
month of all this was sufficient for me. I 
would have rather split rails. 

I had formed the acquaintance of several of 
the clerks in the large wholesale and retail gro- 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 53 

eery across the street, and when they found I 
had left, the proprietor sent for me and gave me 
twenty dollars in cash and paid my board at a 
private boarding house. They could furnish the 
boarding house with groceries, and that is why 
they contracted this way. I accepted that at my 
father's request and hired for six months. They 
were to raise my wages if I suited them. They 
did quite a wholesale business around the coun- 
try, such as small villages. I was not in the store 
a great while until they sent me out to solicit 
trade amongst these merchants. I sold by sam- 
ple, and had a large two-horse platform spring- 
wagon, and would deliver all goods sold. I made 
weekly visits and would deliver last week's orders 
this, and solicit for the next. I visited sixteen 
villages, and drove about thirty miles per day. 
I was out five days in the week. I did all the 
collecting, and ofttimes would bring in five or 
six hundred dollars per day. Oftimes midnight 
would find me on the road. I would leave my 
orders at the store, as there were eleven clerks 
in the store. In the morning my orders were all 
out and loaded in the wagon ready for me when 
I came down. They furnished me a driver, and 
I always fed the teams and took my dinner at 
the little country taverns. I never aimed to 



54 MEANS TO ENDS. 

allow any of ray bills to lapse. Sometimes I 
would have some customers owing seventy- 
five to one hundred dollars. The firm gen- 
erally allowed me to have my way , and 
never refused to rill all my orders; but some 
of them were very risky to carry. I re- 
member one bitter cold Saturday afternoon the 
proprietor called me to the desk and told me he 
wanted me to go to the livery stable, get a horse 
and buggy and go see a customer of mine nine 
miles distant, (as Saturdays I always remained 
in the store,) as he had heard some one was going 
to close him up, and the customer owed the firm 
about eighty dollars. The livery man gave me 
a very spirited horse, as I had driven the horse 
before. We always called him " Black Pat." I 
had plenty of robes, and I left the store about 
four o'clock. It was then spitting snow and 
growing dark. There was a stiff north-west wind 
that I had to face the whole way out. The last 
words the proprietor said were, " Don't come 
back without the money." Well, I was not so 
sure of that, as Wednesday was my day to call 
on this customer, and me coming out Saturday 
was what dumbfounded me all the way out ; how 
to get round the irregular call without exciting 
any grave suspicion. So busy was I engaged in 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 55 

thought as to how best to manipulate affairs and 
get the money, as that was my errand and the 
firm generally relied on me to accomplish that 
which they desired; and before I could realize, 
I was in the little village. Lamps were all glar- 
ing through frosted panes of glass, and my steed 
seemed to enjoy the crisp air. I blanketed him 
and stepped to the door of my customer. I will 
not repeat my conversation. It was short but 
to the point. He counted his cash and had only 
fifty-five dollars. I got him to borrow twenty- 
five dollars of his neighbor. I receipted his bill, 
thanked him, and then retraced my journey. I 
felt sorry for my customer, he was old and hon- 
est, but within three days they closed him up. I 
was back and in the store in two hours and a 
half. The proprietor was surprised and wanted 
to know why I did not go. I told him with the 
roll of bills. He could not believe that I had 
been there and back so soon. The strain on my- 
self was greater than one would anticipate. 
The demand was made on me to get the money, 
as I had made the bill. I did not wish to lose it, 
I was kind and fair with my customer, but I 
won his ways and got the money. I had many 
such experiences. I remained with this firm 
six months and at the end they offered to raise 



56 MEANS TO ENDS. 

my wages five dollars per month. I wanted 
ten. They told me at the end of six months 
they would raise me again. Well, I knew 
what was what, and severed my connection 
with the firm. I did not like the business 
in the first place, and secondly, I knew I 
was worth that much to them and a great 
deal more. Still I was young, but I did 
not think that made any difference. I was 
a little sore also, because I did not want to leave 
the farm. So I went to Cincinnati, Ohio. I 
could not get what I wanted there. As I was 
sauntering up Walnut street I saw the city rail- 
way ticket office. I went in and inquired the 
fare to New York. They told me eighteen dol- 
lars. I had just forty dollars in my pocket. I 
bought one and left Cincinnati at ten o'clock 
Saturday morning for New York City. I arrived 
in New York Monday morning at seven o'clock. 
I supposed New York was different from any 
other city, but when I alighted from the train in 
Jersey City I saw a large cab standing there. It 
was painted red, with gilt letters on the side that 
I spelled out, Earl's Hotel. I climbed in that 
and thought that would take me somewhere. I 
did not want anyone to know I was green if I 
could help it. Perhaps I looked it. Well, pretty 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 57 

soon the driver mounted the seat and drove the 
team, cab and all, on the ferry-boat. I thought 
that strange, but I thought if he could endure it 
I could, and kept my place. We crossed the 
Hudson river in this manner, and the driver drove 
off and drove for quite a distance and landed me 
at Earl's Hotel, corner Canal and Center streets, 
just off Broadway. I registered. They asked 
me if I had been to breakfast. I said no. I 
went in the dining-room nad on the bill of fare I 
saw fried oysters. Well, I was fond of them. 
I told the waiter I wanted breakfast, as the names 
on the menue was of such outlandish words I 
left it all to him, just so I got fried oysters. 
Weil, I was not there a great while until 
fried oysters began to get wooley. The 
waiter gave me a good breakfast, then I 
felt better, for I was very tired. I did not 
know a soul, and did not know just what 
I would do or where I was. I knew I was 
amongst strangers, and made up my mind 
I would not say much to anyone. Well, I got my 
breakfast. I went out in front of the hotel and 
thought awhile. I looked up the street and saw 
a coupe coming my way. I went out on the 
curb and hailed him. He came up. I soon made 
a bargain with him and stepped in. The first 



58 MEANS TO ENDS. 

call he made I got out, but cautioned him not 
to leave. That I might have known, for I had 
not paid him. He said he would wait, and I 
saw him smile. I felt a little uneasy, for I had 
read of so much in New York City, as well as 
other cities. I soon came out and directed him 
to drive me down on Chambers street. I was 
there some time. I called at the office door and 
asked for the proprietor. He came forward and 
addressed me by saying, " Well, sir, what is it? " 
My answer was I wanted work. " Why, young 
man, we turn away hundreds every day that are 
seeking employment." Well, I insisted on work. 
He asked me what I knew. I frankly told him 
I did not know a great deal, but was willing to 
learn. I was rather surprised when I was asked 
if I had a college diploma in my pocket. I told 
him I was sorry to say I had not. The shrewd 
business man looked at me a full minute and 
kindly remarked that that was no fault. He 
then told me to come in. I was taken into a pri- 
vate office and introduced to his partner, who 
conversed with me for more than one hour. If 
that interview could be reproduced it would make 
interesting reading. I was told to come back 
the next morning at nine o'clock sharp, and was 
excused. My cabman was still waiting for me 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 59 

on the outside. He drove me back to the hotel 
and only charged me one dollar. That was very 
reasonable, considering the time that was con- 
sumed. I never was duped but once by a hack- 
man, and that was in Toledo, Ohio, several years 
ago, on my first trip out of New York. I arrived 
in Toledo about eleven o'clock p. M. As the 
trains there at that time all terminated at the 
old Island Depot, and I was not acquainted, and 
the night being a dark, gloomy one, I took a cab 
and directed the driver to the Burnette House, 
which was just at the crossing of the draAV-bridge, 
not more than one square or such a matter. I 
noticed after crossing the bridge the Burnette 
House, but instead of allowing me to alight, the 
cabman turned up Summit street and drove me 
around one block and back to the hotel named. 
I saw the trick and told him as I was tired of 
travel, I would much rather he had allowed me 
to alight at crossing the bridge. He saw I was 
a stranger else I would not have taken the cab. 
I paid fifty cents for that, I was penny wise 
and pound foolish. It only put me on my 
guard ever after. I also learned from my New 
York interview with the proprietor that for all 
education over and above a common sense 
knowledge was ruinous. That is why I con- 



60 



MEANS TO ENDS. 



demn the methods pursued by the majority 
of Young America. It has cost me a great 
many hard knocks to experience all this. 
The knowledge gained from coming in con- 
tact with the world is of more value than 
all college education. Too much book-learn- 
ing deadens the intellectual embodiment of 
the attainments of knowledge. But after you 
have spent the better part of life in book-learning, 
you have also formed such habits that are dis- 
tasteful to the average business man. You are 
determined to begin where others left ofi in busi- 
ness pusuits. But the next morning found me at 
an old feed store across the street from the place 
down on Chambers street, where I had been di- 
rected to call at nine o'clock sharp. I kept my 
watch in hand, and at the appointed time I was 
there, and upon entering, was informed that they 
had concluded to try me. Elated over that, I 
was put to work in my preparatory for the road. 
I was also informed I would have to deposit forty 
dollars with them as security for the samples 
that were intrusted to my care on the road ; and 
after they saw I was all right, the money was to 
be refunded. Three weeks after I was out I re- 
ceived a check for the forty dollars, and after that 
I was allowed a set of new samples once a month, 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 61 

as the handling of them in that length of time 
soiled them. I carried forty-two brands of 
cigars, as well as other samples. While in New 
York my finances were not sufficient, as on my 
arrival there I had only eighteen dollars, and my 
board was eighteen dollars per week. Having 
arrived on Monday morning, my week was due 
Sunday. I went to the proprietor and told him 
that I had sent home for money, and it might 
not reach me by that time. Well, that only made 
matters of a more serious nature. He wanted to 
know all about my business. I told him, and 
while I was telling him, another was telegraphing 
the house to verify my statements. I did not 
know this at the time, but as I had told the pro- 
prietor my situation, he told me when I went 
down to the house there, the proprietor of the 
hotel wanted me to pawn my watch, as I carried 
a gold one. I would not do that, for I was act- 
ing in good faith, and nothing was yet really 
due by contract for board. But Saturday came 
and no mail from home. I had left money at 
home, and did not really see why I did not re- 
ceive it, as my father told me whenever I needed 
the money, he would send it to me, as to have 
so much money on my person was not the best. 
In the meantime I had formed the acquaintance 



62 MEANS TO ENDS. 

of a very nice young man who was stopping at 
the hotel. He was then having his eyes treated 
and could scarcely see. I was of a great deal 
of assistance to hiin, and had told him of my 
situation. Saturday noon came. No mail. 
After lunch I told my friend I was going to wire 
home, as perhaps my letter was delayed some- 
where. So we walked up Broadway to the 
Western Union telegraph office. I wrote my 
message and passed it in at the receiving clerk's 
window. He read it, and informed me that I 
would have to deposit five dollars for the assur- 
ance that the charges would be paid on the re- 
ceiving end of the line. Well, I only had two 
dollars, and I was in a fix. I told him it would 
be paid, and insisted that charges follow, as the 
message would have to be delivered in the coun- 
try. One could not tell what the charges really 
would be. The message alone would only have 
been fifty cents. The clerk told me that by de- 
positing the H\e dollars, if paid by the receiver, 
they would refund the money. My friend put 
up the five, and the message went forward. We 
then walked back to the hotel, and when we en- 
tered the office, the clerk handed me the looked- 
for letter. On opening it, a draft for two hun- 
dred dollars was enclosed on the Manhattan 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 63 

Bank of New York, with inclosed printed slip 
that read mince meat in printed form, and a 
letter from the cashier of the bank who had drawn 
the draft. He told me to present the slip to the 
cashier of the Manhattan Bank and that would 
identify me as the proper person to pay the money 
to. The proprietor of the hotel cashed the draft 
for me, less my week's board, and informed me 
that I could remain at the hotel as long as I 
cared to. But I felt different about it than he 
did. That was quite an ordeal for me, and only 
a boy at that. My friend and I then went back to 
the telegraph office and my five dollars were re- 
turned, as my father paid the charges. I abided 
about one month after in New York, and left 
on my first trip as a drummer on the road. I had 
still a few hay-seeds in my hair, and the furnish- 
ing of toilet articles in some of the hotel wash- 
rooms were not of much avail in riddance, as 
ofttimes you could not tell if you were applying 
the bristle of the hair-brush, or the back. What 
few bristles there were left looked so lonesome 
and weak they could not stand erect, and the 
menu if some were arranged in all the artistic 
style of type and skill the printer could bring to 
bear to have the meals seem inviting ; in fact, so 
much so that manners forbid wanting more. The 



64 MEANS TO ENDS. 

outlandish names of some of the pastry and hold- 
overs would put Webster's Dictionary to shame. 
After the guests would get next, they would 
change them, but they were practically the same 
thing. Ofttimes the waiters would start to fan 
you; that meant produce, or cough up, as the 
slang phrase would be used with the boys, or in 
other words, one of the hotels where the waiter 
depended more on the guests for his salary than 
on the house. Where meals were served accord- 
ing to the amount of tips, many waiters in New 
York depended entirely on tips for their services 
in the leading restaurants and cafes. If you 
were a liberal patron at the bar, the best rooms 
were always reserved. If you did not patronize 
the best hotels, the trade thought you cheap. 
Customers would think it a great honor to dine 
with you at the leading hotels, or an invitation 
to occupy a box seat in the most fashionable 
down-town theatre, cost you perhaps two or three 
dollars per, and then charge the customer five 
or ten more on a bargain sale, and think what a 
good time you had. As every man has a weak 
spot, it always demanded considerable strategy 
in some cases to locate it. Some were internally 
some externally by the time you had canvassed 
the city and passed through the trying ordeal. 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 65 

Gilinore's famous band had no attractions, as 
fashionable hotels served six o'clock dinners the 
weary day, it destroyed the appetite. You would 
mail your orders, inquire the departure of the 
west-bound night train of the clerk for the next 
point on your route, that would land you, per- 
haps, at the break of day the next morning in 
time for breakfast that you could call the turn of 
the bill of fare, receive your mail urging in- 
creased sales and less expenditures. 

Don't mention drummers to me, I have 
been there and write this for the benefit of 
those whose aspirations are so inclined, but of 
all the ups and downs on the road, I never drank, 
gambled, or in any way discredited myself; 
worked early and late, weary and worn, as the 
trials spoiled all the pleasures. About the 
most trying experience I ever encountered in 
my travels was on my return trip from Kansas 
the first time, as I was there again in a few 
years afterwards. 

My first trouble arose over the purchase 
of a return ticket from Hutchinson, Eeno Co., 
Kansas. There arrived there a gentleman from 
Chicago, as I was about ready to return; the 
regular fare was sixty dollars; he offered his for 

5 



66 MEANS TO ENDS. 

forty, and guaranteed the passage on the 
ticket. As I was a little doubtful as to its gen- 
uineness, but my uncle knew the man and they 
told me if it was rejected to return it and he 
would refund the money. I could have bought 
a regular ticket from Hutchinson to Piqua for 
forty-two dollars, as one could get west much 
easier than east. They knew if they could get 
you out there on reduced rates they would 
catch you on both going and coming. But I 
took the Chicago route; for I was figuring close, 
for all the money on my person consisted of five 
ten dollar bills and two fives; sixty dollars in 
all, and if the ticket was rejected I was in a 
position to be laid up for better days. Ever since 
the two well-dressed and fine appearing gentle- 
men tried to palm themselves off for leaders in 
the Chicago bible-class, I was a little suspicious 
of strangers. The two who claimed to be 
christians reminded me of many more whom I 
have chanced to meet. Boys who were reared 
in all the luxuries of life, who never labored, 
and boasted that they never would, it makes 
but little difference if a thief or a gentleman, 
they are dangerous elements in any community. 
Well, I took the three o'clock morning train 
over the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Bail- 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 67 

road, at that time the road only extended to 
Dodge City, Kansas, which was the great ter- 
minus of cattle-shipping for the southwestern 
range, as there were only two passenger trains 
daily, we could not well take day-trains. The 
morning was a dark, gloomy one, I had my 
trunk checked to Chicago, via Atchison, Kan- 
sas, over the Chicago, Kock Island and Pacific 
Kailroad. I seated myself in the railway coach 
and the train pulled out, the conductor came 
along presently, I handed him my ticket, he 
held the ticket close to his lantern, one of those 
nickle-plated ones that swung from his arm by 
the handle, with globe of half-shaded green as a 
sort of a reflector, I could not get full glimpse of 
his face, but I realized he was planning some- 
thing desperate. He sized me up and saw that 
I was a tender-foot and went after me. He 
asked me where I got the ticket. But in the 
meantime he had separated a small coupon 
about half-inch in width from the ticket and put 
that in his coat pocket. I told him I bought it. 
He questioned me as to where, I told him Hut- 
chison. I told the truth right through. Fin- 
ally he stated that these tickets were not trans- 
ferable and then he said my fare would be ten 
dollars to the end of his division, but I told him 



68 MEANS TO ENDS. 

the ticket was guaranteed to me, and that I 
wanted the balance of my ticket, that he re- 
fused to give up. Well, I told him I would not 
pay until he did, I was beginning to think per- 
haps he belonged also to the Chicago bible- 
class. Argument was of no avail, he had stop- 
ped the train. I told him my trunk was in the 
baggage car. Well he said he would put that 
that off to, so I was compelled to pay the ten 
dollars and part of my ticket in his possession. 
Then my finances only consisted of two five dol- 
lar bills and a long way from home, not so much 
that as conditions. There was one man who 
came to me in the car and offered to befriend 
me, and asked me to allow him to examine my 
ticket. 

Well I scrutinized him also, but he assured 
me that he was all right. We were then near- 
ing Atchison, Kansas, where we were to change 
cars. He told me to let him have the ticket 
when we got off the train, and as he knew the 
Chicago conductor and he would ask him if the 
ticket was good over their road. He told me to 
remain in the baggage-room, and he would re- 
turn in a few minutes. I was yet a little skepti- 
cal, but I was almost assured he was my friend. 
It was only a few minutes until he returned and 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 69 

Informed me the ticket was all right, and if not, 
for the ticket being a continuous passage, he 
would have me stay over and then we would 
get the ten dollars back. But it was either pro- 
ceed or lose forty dollars to get ten. We pro- 
ceeded across the state of Iowa, crossed the 
Mississippi Kiver at Davenport, or Kock Island 
to Chicago, I had been on the train two days. 
Arriving in Chicago about seven o'clock in the 
evening, stopping at the Atlantic Hotel just 
across the street from the depot, the hotel was 
crowded; having registered and cleaned myself 
up from travel, I came to the office ready for 
supper, the clerk came to me and asked me if 
I would care to double-up with room. Well I 
sort of hesitated, for I had had so much experi- 
ence with " doubles " that I wished to be left 
alone. He introduced me to my room-mate, if I 
chose. He was a man I should judge to be 
about 60 years of age, one of those common old 
fellows; clear expression and I judged him to be 
a stockman, which afterwards I learned was 
correct. We dined together and were soon on 
good terms. He seemed to take quite a liking 
to me. Telling him of my trials coming in he 
took a good laugh and told me those were good 
lessons and that I had gained more than lost. 



70 MEANS TO ENDS. 

Then I began to take a different view of matters, 
and agreed with him. We talked all evening 
and retired early; he told me all about his cattle 
and where he lived in Illinois, and that he had 
no children in his family and wanted me to go 
home with him. I often wish I had gone. 
But boy-like, I had no sense in regard to the 
future. In retiring he placed a large pocket- 
book and one of those bulldog revolvers under 
his pillow. He told me he was not afraid of 
me, but of others. I told him he might get to 
dreaming that really someone was in the room, 
and shoot me. He laughed heartily at almost 
everything I said. I was in earnest. He said 
he would not shoot me. I was tired and was 
soon sound asleep, and never woke until he 
woke me, and we were up bright and early. He 
was one of the hustlers. He still insisted that 
I should go home with him, but thinking of my 
cash account I refused, but if that conductor 
had not took my ten no doubt I would, not wish- 
ing to tell him that I had but little money. All 
my thoughts were compressed upon how I was 
going to move, for after breakfast when I paid 
my bill four dollars and seventy-five cents was 
all there was left; I could not get from Chicago 
to Piqua on that. So thinking of an uncle down 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 71 

at Goshen, Indiana, and requiring the fare, I 
found I could reach there and have two dollars 
left. I went out to Englewood, South Chicago, 
where I took the evening train for Goshen, In- 
diana, arriving there about two o'clock in the 
morning, going to the Violet House, as my 
uncle lived in the country. Lodging and break- 
fast was one dollar, then my cash balance con- 
sisted of one lone dollar. This was Sunday 
morning, in the Spring of the year, the roads 
were almost impassable; going to a livery barn 
and inquiring how far out my uncle lived I 
found it was seven miles. He wanted two dol- 
lars to drive me out, but stating his son lived 
about half way would drive me there for one 
dollar. Accepting that as the roads were 
heavy, we did not arrive there until noon. 
There was a country school-house just across the 
road from where my cousin lived, there was 
singing-school there Sunday evening that I at- 
tended. The first gathering I had been at since 
leaving home. It seemed sort of strange as the 
contrast from Kansas to Ohio was as different 
as night is to day. I went to my uncle's after 
singing was over as they were there. The next 
day I borrowed my uncle's horse and buggy and 
two dollars and drove to Goshen, and drew on 



72 MEANS TO ENDS. 

my account at home for twenty-five dollars. I 
remained with my uncle for about one week and 
returned home. The first work I did was to 
saw eight cords of wood for the school-house 
at one dollar per cord. Under the circum- 
stance of which I was sent west, home seemed 
like a stranger to me. It sort of left a sad for- 
lorn hope to think of, because I succeeded a lit- 
tle better than others of my own efforts. 

In writing this my purpose is that every 
act of anyone is not without some purpose as to 
illustrate and portray striving humanity, which 
is the prime factor and cause of labor unions 
and many other detrimental organizations as no 
two persons are generally constituted alike, one 
may be more apt than the other. Aptness must 
suffer because of the other. Experience is of no 
avail in coping against ignorance. But when 
law steps in and equalizes the two then know- 
ledge suffers because of the other. It's justlike 
the hitch on the road-wagon, the finest and 
strongest horse you use the stay-chain, the other 
represents all the meaning implies, but for ca- 
pacity and strength, as well as endurance, there 
is no compromise. So with everything. We 
select men to office who have about as much 



FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 73 

legislative common sense as a horse, but to hear 
them tell it is different. 

It's the effect that talks until grievances are 
pigeon-holed only awaiting the opportunity to 
vent them, so much so that it has destroyed jus- 
tice in law until mob-law has over-shadowed the 
better element in vengeance against statutory 
proceedings in bartering away the wise policy 
for the honors in pursuit in the closing remarks, 
from boyhood to manhood, the writer wishes to 
impress upon the minds of the youths that in- 
dustry, economy and character will out-weigh 
all the college diplomas that were ever pro- 
duced. Learn the value of time and money, 
and that a sound, physical body is to be more 
cherished and preserved than wealth, that 
obedience is the father of the boy, and that 
respect of parents denotes manly character and 
discipline in training, choose good company and 
read good books. Earn a little and spend a lit- 
tle less; keep regular habits, respect yourself, 
and others will respect you; be your plain self. 
All these will clear up your mind that you may 
see things as they really are and be the means 
of food for thought to the end. 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 

A HEEDING solicitude of past and future 
events that are commendable, and the 
results of over-confidence in men of posi- 
tion, in public trust, it is well to memorize the 
details and profit by the experience of others ; as 
one day of results is of more value than a life- 
time spent in idle talk and the result of the high 
standard of equality and rich store of knowledge 
gained therefrom, as knowledge is the handmaid 
of liberty and virtue. For of all the dispositions 
and habits which lead to political prosperity, 
religion and morality are indispensable supports. 
In vain would that man claim the tribute of patri- 
otism who should labor to subvert these great 
pillars of human happiness, these firmest props 
of the duties of men and citizen. The mere poli- 
tician, equally with the pious man, ought to re- 
spect and cherish them. A volume could not 
trail all the connections with private and public 
felicity. Let it simqly be asked, where is the 
security for prosperity, for reputation, for life, 
if the sense of religious obligations desert the 

(74) 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 75 

oaths which are the instruments of investigation 
in courts of justice? And let us with caution 
indulge the supposition that morality can be 
maintined without religion. Whatever may be 
conceded to the influence of refined education on 
minds of peculiar structure, reason and experi- 
ence doth forbid us to expect that natural moral- 
ity can prevail to the exclusion of religious prin- 
ciples. 'Tis substantially true that virtue or 
morality is a necessary spring of popular govern- 
ment. The rule indeed extends with more or less 
force to every species of free government. Who 
that is a sincere friend to it can look with indif- 
ference upon attempts to shake the foundation 
of the fabric? Six years ago I was sent to the 
state of Michigan by the chairman of national 
speakers bureau in the presidential campaign to 
deliver a few addresses in the interest of popular 
government. Not being constrained as to the 
character of speech or the topics to be touched 
upon I felt at liberty to speak my mind and 
truth to the best of my knowledge and personal 
observation and experience and ability regard- 
less of political ties and party issues and without 
discrimination in divulging the calamities that 
befel nations of equal importance as our own; 
that the signs of the times denoted and pictured 



76 MEANS TO ENDS. 

in my mind vivid reflections upon the horizon, 
that we too are subjecting ourselves in like pur- 
suits. Not wishing to mingle politics with busi- 
ness or array one class against another. But be- 
ing forwarned is forearmed. Feeling confident 
that after the reader has given this book a care- 
ful perusal and compare with your personal ex- 
perience, you will be of the same mind as the 
author, and a wiser man in the conception of 
duty in maintaining free government and re- 
claiming personal liberty and independence of a 
government of the people and by the people. 
Political influence of personal character is rap- 
idly deterrogating all will admit, and has such 
tendency of influence upon character as to ex- 
clude reputable personage from political influ- 
ence. Honor shrinks from the tirades of the pub- 
lic press and quietly submits to the corruptable 
tactics of the political boss or machine element 
and shudders at the horrors that would arise 
from woman suffrage and silently endures it all 
as a matter of business in retaining his customers. 
Business is very reticent and timid of expression 
on matters of state. From such causes it's a dif- 
ficult matter to feel the public pulse. So by all 
means spare the woman from the ballot. The 
writer's opinion of woman suffrage in admission 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 77 

to the free use of the ballot is not without men- 
tion. As the most successful method in the 
cause advanced of taxataion without representa- 
tion of properties attained by right of inherit- 
ance subjected to the maintenance of free gov- 
ernment in taxation by right of possession where 
political corruption does not admit of honest dis- 
cussion of masculine gender. It would have 
even a greater tendency of degrading influence 
on the morals and virtues which are the very rock 
and foundation of civil government. To admit 
feminine gender would only have the tendency to 
diminish the strength of the cause, as possessions 
acquired by ballot are obtained by schemes and 
means that are generally destructive in the end. 
The means employed in political arenas are even 
distasteful to the average voter of intelligence 
and refinement. The greater reforms are gener- 
ally consummated in happy and contented homes, 
homes that men would lay off their coats and 
bare their arms to defend in sacred honor. This 
was the spirit of revolutionary fame. The at- 
tainable rights of woman suffrage is to learn the 
arts and sciences in happy home building. This 
is her sphere and forte and greater accomplish- 
ments will arise from the efforts in this direction 
than the ballot. If women would only cultivate 



78 MEANS TO ENDS. 

individuality and aspire to that which creation 
intended, men's inspiration for better govern- 
mentwould soon assert itself in such a form as 
to determine such government as the acts of the 
governed would dictate. This would indicat the 
most natural and impressive solution of woman 
suffrage. As oftimes attainments acquired by 
ballot are settled at the point of the bayonet. As 
the following address delivered at Bushnell, 
Montcalm county, Michigan, was somwhat out 
of the ordinary and most too deep a subject for 
the audience. At Montcalm county, one of the 
largest counties in the state of Michigan, not 
densely populated, there was some discriminat- 
ing circumstances connected with the meeting 
that had their unpleasant bearings and was em- 
barrassing even to myself as the speaker. As I 
had traveled more than two hundred and fifty 
miles that day, and railway connections delayed 
travel to such an extent as to somewhat discour- 
age the committee in charge, of my timely arrival 
which was not without precedence of substitut- 
ing. In case of my absence the candidate for 
prosecuting attorney was chosen as alternate. 
But I arrived at the appointed hour and insisted 
upon giving way to my alternate but that was re- 
fused. I also learned that this candidate was 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 79 

embittered somewhat at my presence. Of course 
he was a lawyer and in politics for all that there 
was in it. The speaker, a citizen in the sole 
honor to enlighten my fellow man to the best of 
my ability to the greatest good and greatest 
number . Having posed all my life as a public 
benefactor feeling more at home in my vocation 
of instead where one spear of grass grew we now 
have two. It was not my intention to enter 
politics when I accepted to deliver the address. 
No far from it. It was experience and informa- 
tion that prompted me. I got both and formed 
the conclusion that the office did not seek the 
man, but the man the office. And that the most 
capable men that would do credit to the office 
are never heard from. I have also learned to 
never judge a man by his position by appoint- 
ment. I was driven about 9 miles in the country 
and the meeting was held in a grange hall; every 
representative of office in the county was there, 
from the least to the greatest. They arrayed 
themselves on a long bench just in front of the 
speaker's stand while the band played national 
airs, and all eyes were upon me. After the mu- 
sic, the chairman made a few remarks and in- 
troduced me as the speaker from Dayton, Ohio. 
Well, to be honest with you, those fellows on the 



80 MEANS TO ENDS. 

bench annoyed me, because the gentleman that 
had driven me out told me, the feeling of my in- 
vasions and presence in their midst of honors 
that they coveted. I have learned prejudice and 
jealousy deprive our offices of our best men. The 
address is complete, excepting the omission of 
the real characters, and trust will bethe means 
of closer relations regardless of party ties, in es- 
tablishing the fudamental principles of govern- 
ment and the administering of affairs of such 
character and simplicity, meekness and patriotic 
spirit, as to strengthen the weak, and humiliate 
the strong, with such means and measures as will 
foster brighter and nobler ends in such days when 
dark and gloomy clouds hover over us. Let us 
offer words of encouragement as words fittingly 
spoken are like apples of gold in pictures of sil- 
ver. 

By many a presidential campaign is 
thought to be a nuisance and a hindrance to 
business, not rightly divining the duties, privil- 
eges and responsibilities of a government of the 
people, for the people, by the people. It is the 
indifference of the busy voters to politics which 
substitutes the chief danger by which the repub- 
lic is threatened. Most Americans carry on 
their shoulders an awful load of work and 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 81 

worry. But it will be a dark day for America 
when its citizens cease to maintain the freedom 
for which their fathers fought and died. No 
man ought to be so busy that he cannot find 
time to develop some of the graces of his 
nature. The culture of the intellct is of as 
much importance as the development of a vast 
business enterprise. Eeligion has claims upon 
busy people which cannot be shirked hereafter, 
if they can be here. In like manner the culti- 
vation of patriotism and attention to one's own 
duty as a follower of Caesar is something which 
it is a crime to disregard. The farmer of New 
England did not think politics a nuisance when 
they were shooting English red-coats from Lex- 
ington to Concord Bridge. Neither did the 
southern planter think so about the time their 
great grand leader was driving Cornwallis into 
close quarters at Yorktown. It ought to bring 
the blood to the face of every American to dis- 
close politics a nuisance. 

Tyranny always begins in the indifference of 
the people to the acts and personnel of the gov- 
erning power. Let us alone, has been the cry 
of decaying states since Babylon fell. Busy 
people are the people of every nation on the 

6 



82 MEANS TO ENDS. 

earth, and the indifference of voluntary alien- 
ism of any considerable number of them bodes 
no good to the country now or in the future. 
History shows that republics are endangered 
when patriotism gives place to personal prefer- 
ment. The experience of a government of the 
people, by the people, for the people, has been 
tried a good many times. Thus far it has al- 
ways failed when the people began to grow in- 
different and to trust state affairs to political 
manipulators. Has that point been reached in 
American politics? The question is the most 
important one which can be propounded. It is 
also one to be reflected upon by thinking men, 
and one to be enacted upon before the republic 
topples over into the ruin which came upon the 
Italian republic, upon Rome, and upon the early 
Grecian states. Nothing can be more disgust- 
ing than the selfish and presumptuous schemes 
foisted upon the recent nominating convention 
to win delegates from the plain course marked 
out by the will of the people. They show that 
grave senators, trusted public officials, are capa- 
ble of any depth of infamy to accomplish their 
personal ends. To sacrifice party, to barter 
away a wise party of government and to disobey 
the behests of the people, who have made them 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 83 

what they are, is not thought venial by those 
who vested them with power to do so. How to 
uplift politics from the perilous brink of the 
abyss is one of the chief problems of our day. 
The evil will never cure itself and it will never 
be cured until selfishness and greed give place 
to the vigorous assertions of the honest and pa- 
triotic sentiment of the people. The American 
citizen has faith in the power of public opinion 
and the searchlight of honest inquiry need to 
be turned upon the dark and sinuous ways of 
the politician when found to be the barterer of 
his country's liberties; he needs to be treated as 
the betrayer and the traitor and his political de- 
capitation will usher in the light of a new day 
in national, state and county or municipal af- 
fairs therefore. Y/hen in the course of human 
events it becomes necessary for our people to 
dissolve the political bands which have con- 
nected them with another and to assume among 
the powers of the nation the separate and equal 
station to which the laws of nature and of 
nature's God entitled them, a decent respect 
to the opinions of mankind, requires that they 
should disclose the causes which impel them to 
separation. We hold these truths to be self- 
evident, that all men are created equal and that 



84 MEANS TO ENDS. 

they are endowed by their Creator with inher- 
ent and inalienable rights. That among those 
are liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That 
to secure these rights governments are insti- 
tuted among men deriving their just powers 
from the consent of the governed. That when- 
ever any form of government becomes destruct- 
ive to these ends it is the right of the people to 
order or abolish and to institnte new govern- 
ment, laying its foudation on such principles 
and organizing its powers in such form as to 
them shall seem most likely to effect their 
safety and happiness. Prudence indeed will 
dictate that this government is for the people 
and by the people, and not for establishing laws 
that leave the comon people exposed to all dan- 
gers of invasions from without and convulsions 
within, or establishing new offices with swarms 
of new officers to harass the common people and 
eat out their substance. Law is like prussic 
acid, "a dangerous remedy and the smallest dose 
is generally sufficient/' It has excited treason- 
able insurrection of our fellow-citizens with the 
allurements of forfeiture and confiscation of our 
prosperity. It has waged cruel war against 
human nature, and that these horrors might 
want no fact of distinguished die in the event of 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 85 

the election of the presidency of the United 
States. Future ages will scarcely believe that 
the tardiness of one party adventured within 
the short compass of four years, only to lay a 
foundation so broad and so undisguised for tyr- 
anny over a people fostered and fixed in prin- 
ciple of freedom as party. These facts have 
given the last stab to agonizing affection and 
manly spirit, bids renounce their attitude to- 
ward their distrustful scheme for private ad- 
vantage. We hold them as we hold the rest of 
mankind, enemies in strife against falsehood in 
peace, friends, to prove this let facts be submit- 
ted to a candid people, for the truth of which we 
pledge a faith the road to happiness and to glory 
is open to us to elect a president of these United 
States, contract alliances, establish confidence, 
restore protection and prosperity and do all 
other acts and things which independent people 
may of right do and for the support of their- 
declaration we mutually pledge to each other 
our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. 
As this is a campaign of education let us dis- 
close the causes that have revealed the effects. 
There are many of them. As my time is limited 
I shall touch upon the most vital. No intelligent 
man who has had opportunities for observation 



86 MEANS TO ENDS. 

can doubt that the agricultural problem is the 
most vital in American politics to-day, though it 
has been thrust aside by issues that are at most 
only emissisaries and unparalleled. The coun- 
try has had profound peace for thirty years; 
there has been no famine; in fact this period has 
been one of wonderful productiveness; yet every 
year the farmers as a class have become poorer; 
every year it has been found more difficult for 
them to meet their obligations. The farmer 
goes in debt for the things necessary to raise a 
crop and when the day of settlement arrives the 
price of farm products has gone down and rela- 
tively money is plenty. The statement is fre- 
quently heard that the farmer is not progressive, 
that he should buy more machinery and fertil- 
izers, and curtail living expenses. It is not 
worth while to enter into a discussion relative to 
such statements; in part they are true; as a rule 
they are false. The American farmer is pro- 
gressive, he is intelligent, he is frugal; he is a 
hard worker and the pinched and careworn face 
of his wife shows that she bears her burden. 
They are a brave and hopeful couple, but they 
are beginning to despair, and when they do, the 
institutions of our republic will topple down 
upon us as a mass of shapeless ruins. Bacon 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 87 

says, "let nations that aim at greatness take 
heed how their nobility and gentlemen do mul- 
tiply too fast, for that maketh the common sub- 
ject grow to be a peasant and a base swine 
driven out of heart and in effect a gentleman's 
laborer." Again he says, "neither will it be 
that a people overlaid with taxes should ever 
become valiant and martial" and he draws the 
conclusion that no people overcharged with tri- 
bute is fit for empire. The materialistic rea- 
soners of the present day decry the lessons of 
history. They point to the wonderful progress 
of this country and say a new era has dawned. 
Let our children study the practical arts and 
science taught in our technical schools and learn 
to make a living. Again we have a grain of 
truth mixed with much sophistry. We are de- 
parting from the profound methods of our an- 
cestors, and nations, like men, are slow to profit 
by the experience of others. It is not necessary 
to insist upon the importance of the farming of 
the country, or to point out the effect that the 
farmer's prosperity or decay has upon all other 
callings and upon the moral, social and intelli- 
gent development of the country. Draper shows 
how the first awakening of mind took place in 
those countries when the farming classes were 



88 MEANS TO ENDS. 

most prosperous and were able to make a liv- 
ing with the least amount of drudgery. Egypt 
in the Old World and Peru and Mexico in the 
New furnish examples. Even a loose reader of 
history will be struck with the elasticity and 
energy the husbandman has shown since we 
Jiave authentic accounts of human events. 
Whenever the land has been relieved of its bur- 
dens, whenever the farmer has been made to 
bear either directly or indirectly only his just 
proportion of the load of taxation. So short a 
time has he gathered his strength and made the 
face of nature to blossom as the rose and to 
smile in prosperous abundance. Witness 
France, when Napoleon had a breathing spell 
from his wars. Witness Spain after the Moorish 
conquest. The history of any country will bear 
similar testimony. The rule has been that 
young countries are prosperous before wealth 
flows into great reservoirs and power and ex- 
penditures increase until agriculture is op- 
pressed. Then decay begins; all sorts of nos- 
trums are proposed, but the malady is deadly 
unless the knife is applied to the cancerous root. 
Some eighteen hundred years ago Plutarch 
wrote: "It was well and truly said that the first 
destroyer of the liberties of a people is he who 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 89 

first gives them bounties and largesses." He 
was a great student of history and at this time 
saw Ronie, at the pinnacle of her glory, start 
slowly on her descent to the depths of degra- 
dation. Great minds were at work in Rome, 
some trying honestly to solve mighty political 
problems; others were demagogues on the 
grandest scale the world has seen. Attempting 
to secure power and wealth by pandering to the 
tumultuous crowds. Wheat was being distri- 
buted free to the populace to keep them quiet; 
shows were being displayed to please them; 
the emperor and two thousand rich patricians 
owned the whole world. Of the 110,000,000 
Roman subjects 60,000,000 were literally slaves. 
Agriculture had reached or was fast approach- 
ing its lowest ebb. It was being claimed that 
the soil of Italy was worn out past redemption, 
and learned treatises were being written on this 
subject. Calumets felt called upon to contro- 
vert a theory that both the air and land has lost 
their fertilizing qualities. Cicero, Cato, Varro, 
and many other eminent Romans wrote on this 
subject and attempted to revive interest in agri- 
culture, which was no longer profitable and con- 
sequently neglected. A few years previous, 
Marius had ordered a reallotment of land to ap- 



90 MEANS TO ENDS. 

pease the popular clamor and had given six- 
teen acres to each individual, yet there was no 
relief. Five hundred years later Theoderic the 
Ostrogoth overran Italy, struck the shackles of 
law from the hands of the farmers and a period 
of great prosperity followed. So great was it 
that a purse was safe upon the public highway 
and Italy is to-day one of the fertile countries 
of the world. Kome also tried her hand on fiat 
money and made a failure. In the declining 
days of the empire it was thought that more 
abundant circulating medium was the thing 
most needful; consequently coins were debased 
by a copper alloy, until little of the original 
metal was left; it had the Eoman stamp upon 
it, and was money, but it did not remedy the 
evil. It is interesting to recall in this con- 
nection the estimate of Herodotus that in the 
reign of Darius, King of Persia, some twenty- 
four hundred years ago gold was worth thirteen 
times more than silver, also that in the year 
1700 gold was worth about fifteen times more 
than silver. Of late years the production of sil- 
ver has been so enormous that now one ounce 
of gold is worth about thirty ounces of silver. 
When it is remembered that nearly one-half 
of what the American farmer makes, "for the 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 91 

average farmer makes no more than a living," 
is consumed in taxes, direct or indirect, is it 
not wonderful that he is in distress ; it is strange 
that he is willing to try almost anything that 
promises relief. Is it not rather almost beyond 
belief that he has suffered in patience so long; 
therefore we find it necessary to point out the 
remedy to the 7,000,000 farmers, irrespective of 
party, as in times of peril there exists no party 
ties, one-half of the world does not know how 
the other half lives; or does on-half of the world 
know what the other half is doing. It may be 
well to be skeptical, but truth is truth and it is 
time the people of this country knew a little 
more of it, and let it thus be the means of doing 
away with a prejudice that is largely founded 
on traditional sentiment, fortified by ignorance. 
The time is fast approaching when more 
than one-half of the now existing financial se- 
curitieswill become worthless as the principals 
involved are fictitious. Invisable means are 
employed to sustain them on future values that 
can never materialize from the simple fact that 
they do not exist; but are fluctuated by means 
accruing from the same source until the finan- 
cial principals can only sustain that which is 
real. These are problems that will eventually 



92 MEANS TO ENDS. 

solve themselves at the expense of the means to 
ends. Then 'tis when reflection will reveal to 
those with means, their destructive end; then 
industry and aspiration will gather up the frag- 
ments and have a breathing spell for a decade, 
until ambition and wealth will again triumph 
in might against right. There are a thousand 
and one theories expounded by creative ambi- 
tious natures to exact tribute and power from 
the governed, such as truant officers, humane 
societies, charitable institutions, and thousands 
of others that practically were the despoiler of 
homes and the destroyer of youth. Our children 
were not slow in comprehending the meaning 
and influence derived from all these. Parents 
lost the control of their children; women busied 
themselves in the affairs of state when their ser- 
vices were much in need in their own homes, in- 
stead of servants ; men sought companionship in 
club houses, saloons, and pulic resorts, because 
home was not cherished in the anticipated ef- 
forts in establishing the home as a seclusion and 
rest from business cares to maintain it. Men 
are very sensitive, society is frivolous, and the 
very moment society crosses your threshold 
your home ceases to be a home in the sense of 
harmony, that men strive to support as a peace- 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 9S 

ful abode. The einbitterments of fashion and 
custom has left skeletons in the closets of many 
palatial homes that causes the writer to repeat 
the old maxim : "What is home without a moth- 
er?" While yet in my teens, I ofttimes called 
on a lady friend; I admired her, not for her 
beauty, but for her lady-like manners and per- 
sonal qualifications. This friend married and 
people rather sneered at her choice; the fel- 
low practically was of very meagre means and 
never had exhibited any personal qualifications 
that he ever would. But his wife was the 
means of making a man of him and to-day is 
rated to be worth thousands. 

Having observed many distinctions in homes 
that were consummated under the most favor- 
able circumstances that proved entire failures, 
that demonstrated the fact that a good man was 
ofttimes ruined by the choice of a helpmate, but 
that a good woman would make a bad man 
good from very poor material and that a bad 
woman would make a good man worthless. 
I was in a country town several years ago 
and the minister had performed the mar- 
riage ceremony of several couples, but all 
had sought separation through the courts; the 
question was asked of the minister how to ac- 



94 MEANS TO ENDS. 

count for all this. His only reply was that they 
were not of- good material, a man to enjoy true re- 
pose and happiness in marriage, must have in his 
wife a soul-mate as well as a help-mate, because 
of the frivolous life and gayeties that surounds 
every walk of life, men and woman have totally 
disregarded companionship in marriage only in 
the most remote districts of civilization as the 
character of men as of women is powerfully influ- 
enced by their companionship in all the stages 
of life. We have already spoken of the influence 
of the mother in forming the character of her chil- 
dren, she makes the moral atmosphere in which 
they live and by which their minds and souls are 
nourished as their bodies are by the physical at- 
mosphere they breathe, and while woman is the 
natural cherisher of infancy and the instructor of 
childhood, she is also the guide and counsellor of 
youth, and the confidant and companion of man- 
hood in her various relations of mother, sister, 
lover and wife, in short, the influence of woman 
more or less efiects for good or for evil the entire 
destinies of man. The respective social func- 
tions and duties of men and women are clearly 
defined by nature. God created man and woman 
each to do their proper work. Each to fill their 
proper sphere, neither can occupy the position or 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 95 

perform the functions of the other. Their sev- 
eral vocations are perfectly distinct. Man is 
stronger, more muscular, and of rougher fibre; 
woman is more delicate, sensitive and nervous. 
The one excels the other in power of brain, the 
other in quality of heart, and though the head 
may rule, it is the heart that influences. Both 
are alike adapted for the respective functions 
they have to perform in life, and to attempt to 
impose woman's work on man would be quite 
as absurd as to attempt to impose man's work on 
woman. Men are sometimes woman-like, and 
and women are sometimes man-like. It is still 
too much the practice to cultivate the weakness 
of woman rather than her strength, and to ren- 
der her attractive, rather than useful. Her sen- 
sibilities are developed at the expense of her 
health of body as well as of mind,, she lives, 
moves and has her being in the sympathy of 
others, of ttimes at the expense of her companion. 
She dresses that she may attract and is burdened 
with accomplishments that she may be chosen. 
Weak, trembling and dependent, she incurs the 
risk of becoming a living embodiment of the 
critic, so good, that she is good for nothing. As 
the missionaries of China called upon Li Hung 
Chang, the great Chinese statesman, and re- 



96 MEANS TO ENDS. 

quested his support and sanction to suppress the 
conipresing of the feet with the Chinese ladies, 
as that is the custom and fashion with the celes- 
tial maid, the wise statesman readily acquiesced 
with the request by consent and donated one hun- 
derd dollars to further the cause and then turned 
to the missionaries and frankly stated that he 
would donate another one hundred dollars to 
suppress the squeezing of the waists of the maids 
of the Anglo-Saxon race, that had become the 
fashion and custom of our fair maids. The re- 
buke was commonplace and the one as serious as 
the other in form. Fashion is the master-piece 
of discontent and ruin. Men set more values on 
the cultivated minds than on the accomplish- 
ments of women which they are raely able to ap- 
preciate. Literature unfits women for every day 
business life, not so with men. You see those of 
the most cultivated minds constantly devoting 
their time and attention to the most homely ob- 
jects. The man whose affections are quickened 
by home life does not confine his sympathies 
within that comparatively narrow sphere. His 
love enlarges in the family and through the fam- 
ily it expands in to the world. Love is a fire that 
kindles its first embers in a narrow work of a 
private bosom caught from a wandering spark 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 97 

out of another private heart, glowes and enlarges 
until it warms and beams upon multitudes of 
men and women and so lights up the whole world, 
and nature with its grievous impulses. It is by 
the solace of domestic affection that the heart of 
man is best composed and regulated. The home 
is the woman's kingdom, her state her world, 
when governed by affection, by kindness, by 
this which so settles the turbulance of a 
man's nature as his union in life with a 
high-minded woman. There he finds rest 
rest of brain and peace of spirit. He will also 
find in her his best counsellor, for her instinc- 
tive tact will usually lead him right when his 
own unaided reason might be apt to go wrong. 
The true wife is a staff to lean upon in time of 
trial and difficulty and she is never wanting in 
sympathy and solace. When distress occurs or 
fortune frowns, Mr. Choate, the eminent lawyer, 
now United States Embassador to the court of 
England, paid the highest tribute to his wife. 
At a social gathering in New York City, someone 
asked him the question, who he would rather be 
if he could not be himself? After thinking of all 
the celebrities of the world, he turned to his wife, 
and said: "If I could not be myself, I would 

7 



98 MEANS TO ENDS. 

rather be Mrs. Choate's second husband." In 
such unions there is always strength and happi- 
ness, some persons are disappointed in marriage, 
because they expect too much from it, and many 
more, because they do not bring into the co-part- 
nership their fair share of cheerfulness, kindli- 
ness, forbearance and common sense. Their im- 
aginations have pictured a condition never ex- 
perienced on this side of heaven, and when real 
life comes trouble comes with it. In writing the 
word trouble, I remember the ceremony of 
marriage of one of my sisters. As my sis- 
ter's husband's mother was in tears and re- 
lated that George was now married and his 
troubles would now begin, I thought that 
was a consoling emphasis to begin with and 
of a very encouraging nature. Most mar- 
riages are consummated with a look for 
something approaching perfection in their chosen 
companion, and discover by experience that the 
fairest of characters have their weaknesses, yet it 
is often the very imperfections of human nature 
rather than its perfection that makes the strong- 
est claims on the forbearance and sympathy of 
others which tends to produce the closest unions. 
Of all qualities, good temper is one that wears 
and works the best in married life, the patience 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 99 

to bear and forbear, to listen without retort, to 
refrain until the angry flash has passed as the 
soft answer turneth away wrath. Most girls are 
very good at making nets, but it would be better 
still if they would learn to make cages ; men are 
often as easily caught as birds, but as difficult to 
keep. If the wife cannot make her home bright 
and happy, so that it shall be the cleanest, sweet- 
est, most cheerful place that her husband can 
find refuge in, a retreat from the toils and 
troubles of the outer world, then God help the 
poor man, for he is virtually homeless. No wise 
person will marry for beauty alone, as beauty is 
vain. It may exercise a powerful attraction in 
the first place, but it is found to be of compara- 
tively little consequence afterwards. Not that 
beauty of person is to be under-estimated, of form 
and beauty of features, as they are the outward 
manifestations of health, but to marry a hand- 
some figure without character, fine features un- 
beautified by sentiment or good nature is the 
most deplorable of mistakes. When down east 
I knew a railroad engineer who had married a 
woman who had attractions of beauty and form. 
The first union proved a failure ; but he was cap- 
tured in a second marriage by the same folly. 
The third wife, he made up his mind should be 

L.cfC. 



100 MEANS TO ENDS. 

blessed with homeliness that others would not 
even look at her. Then his union proved a suc- 
cess. As the finest landscapes seen daily be- 
comes monotonous, so does the beautiful face, un- 
less a beautiful nature shines through it. The 
beauty of to-day becomes common place to-mor- 
row, where as goodness displayed through the 
most ordinary features are the most lovely. 
Moreover this kind of beauty improves with age 
and time ripens rather than destroys it. After 
the first year of married life people rarely think 
of each others features whether they be beauti- 
ful or otherwise, but they never fail to recognize 
the greatness of a mild temper. Of all the re- 
forms of virtue that have proven themselves of 
national importance, have originated in the 
homes of refinement and culture. Homes are the 
wellspring of creative influences that govern the 
whole universe. If economy prevails, the nation 
is governed in economical legislative bodies. If 
extravagance prevails, the nation follows. So 
the power of woman is to either, rule or ruin. 
Men are powerless to prevent these conditions 
only in well regulated homes. There are numer- 
ous good women, as well as good men, but their 
surroundings dictate their better judgment. The 
principal element in the assertion of rule or 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 101 

ruin implies all the meaning signifies from the 
standpoint of cause and effect, the habits and 
customs instilled in our homes, govern and pre- 
dominate the future. Common sense will dictate 
the absurdity of accumulative homes on such 
bases of eulogy in the exercise of power over 
homes in the division of parents and children. 
One to diminish the right, the other to advertise 
the wrong. Opinions and strength have given 
way to weakness and fear until equality and prin- 
ciple have lost all their charms. All these will 
demonstrate themselves by facts filtered with sor- 
row and sadness and only realized by experience. 
All nations are governed in accordance with 
homes that constitute the government. The 
tide of prosperity rolls in on the swell that car- 
ries every conceivable construction with it far out 
on the lowlands. But when it has spent its fury 
of devastation and has reached high tide it be- 
gins slowly to recede 'tis then the awfulness be- 
gins to reveal the wreckage and ruin that which 
has strewn the beach for miles and changed the 
landscape of peaceful homes to that of ruin. 
That is the condition and position by representa- 
tion of homes, we are at high tide, each straining 
every oar until the locks creak with pressure, 
hoping we may land high and dry. Some strokes 



102 MEANS TO ENDS. 

of the oar are dipped too deep, some are in the 
air, because of the billows' tide. We make slow 
progress but hope and trust to land safely some- 
where, we have no choice, only safely somewhere 
and anywhere. But alas, only a few escape. 
This is life if you are an expert with craftiness 
and oarsman many will cling to your life-boat 
and sink you. Others will implore you to save 
them and would readily part with their gold to 
save life. They forget the sinking ones in the 
last forlorn hope and struggle that he might save 
from a pauper's grave. It's about on the same 
principle as the two tramps who landed in Amer- 
ica, they were impressed that money grew and 
blossomed on shrubbbery in this country. No 
effort but a life of ease and comfort. They un- 
dertook to explore this vast domain as tramps; 
they were leisurely plodding along to while away 
time as that hung heavily over them. They sud- 
denly found themselves at the entrance of a pub- 
lic park, they sauntered in and lounged around 
until they came to a beautiful lake ; they walked 
round and finally came face to face with a finger- 
board, that after much ciphering they read as 
follows: "Five dollars reward for the rescue of 
a drowning person, and ten dollars reward for 
the recovery of a drowned body." The lake was 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 103 

very deep. Pat could read, but Jimmy could not. 
Pat read the sign over several times aloud so 
Jimmy might comprehend the meaning. Fi- 
nally Pat remarked to Jimmy that he should 
jump into the lake, he would rescue him and then 
claim the reward of five dollars, and in the deal 
Jimmy was to share the reward. After much 
parleying Jimmy agreed and jumped in. Pat 
stood upon the bank as unconcerned as if noth- 
ing had happened, Jimmy's head popped up and 
saw Pat's disregard in his rescue ; the next time 
Jimmy came to the surface he was alarmed at 
Pat's demeanor and called out, "Pat save me, you 
may have all the five" Pat's answer was, 
"never mind the five Jimmy, I want the ten." 

These are morals that are practiced and clas- 
sified as shrewd business; captivating as they 
are they find many victims, especially on stock 
exchanges and those who deal in futures. Any- 
thing that offers quick returns, with the least 
amount of time; capital and labor expended 
something for nothing are the elementary per- 
mits of thousands of people. No questions 
asked as to how obtained. I have leaped into 
more lakes than one and under similar circum- 
stances as the tramp, but I always managed to 
swim out and leave my treacherous friend to 



104 



MEANS TO ENDS. 



comfort his own feelings. It seems to be a part 
of life, and even before one becomes accustomed 
to them, life has spent its forces. So it's best to 
learn them early in life and profit by them. The 
experiences related ar valuable, for all must en- 
counter them before life is completed; to those 
who aim to display their efforts for the better- 
ment of striving humanity, the Bible insructs 
industry and economy, as wastefulness always 
leads to woeful want. If the youth were taught 
how to escape all these pitfalls instead of being 
educated how to create them, these would start 
happy and contented homes. We have too 
many young men trying to gain a livelihood 
from their wits. From educational training 
their whole demeanor does not invite or 
denote any encouraging improvements. Moth- 
ers should guard their daughters and not en- 
courage them to seek company while in their 
teens; be their best companions; teach them the 
waywardness of the world and the wages of sin ; 
accompany them and guide them; the duties of 
home and character, as a man's moral character 
is powerfully influenced by his wife. A lower 
nature will drag him down as a higher one will 
lift him up; the former will deaden his sympa- 
thies, dissipate his energies and distort his life; 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 105 

the latter will strengthen his moral nature and 
tend to energize his intellect. The woman of 
high principals will elevate the aims and pur- 
poses of her husband, as one of low principals 
will unconsciously degrade them. I have known 
young men, if that I may justly call them, on 
forming the acquaintance of a young lady, im- 
mediately consult Bradstreet's or Dunn's com- 
mercial agency to ascertain the financial stand- 
ing of her father. If good they would seek to 
capture, the young lady with the sole aim and 
ambition to instead diminish the family circle 
of the prospective father-in-law but add too. 
There are many young men as well as women 
looking for easy untoiling lives; they are gen- 
erally the ones who are disappointed in mar- 
riage. One circumstance I will relate to show 
the honesty of purpose; my uncle's farm joined 
my father's ; they were childless and always kept 
a man employed by the month; they had secured 
the services of a German young man; his wages 
consisted of twenty-five dollars per month, 
board and washing, nine months in the year, 
and the three months was by the day, one dollar 
per day and board; the board was included if he 
did not work but one day a week, but the chores 
were always attended by him which earned him 



106 MEANS TO ENDS. 

his board and washing; he remained with my 
uncle for three years. He had accumulated 
several hundred dollars before coming to work 
for my uncle; he also managed to save the better 
part of his wages, all of which was on interest, 
earning him something also. He always wore 
good clothes but was very careful with them, 
and one suit of clothes for dress would answer 
for three or four years with him. He was al- 
ways ready to bear his share of expense with the 
neighbor boys as long as he remained in their 
social company, but when the expense began to 
double up on him he would always excuse him- 
self. Other young men would have a horse and 
buggy; he had none, but enjoyed himself, I be- 
lieve, better than those who had. The third 
year he married a lady that kept house for a 
farmer several miles from where he worked. 
She was a splendid house-keeper and familiar 
with all the details. The farmer she kept house 
for gave her a good cow and many other useful 
articles. The young man had saved up sixteen 
hundred dollars; they bought a small farm of 
fifty acres, went in debt several hundred dollars, 
but soon paid that, and then they built a new 
barn, improved the farm, and to-day are clear of 
debt, happy and contented. His wife was one of 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 107 

those economical housewives and had saved 
from her wages more than one hundred dollars, 
after paying for her own marriage gowns. She 
knew all the details of wife; she -was high- 
minded and of good character. Having spoken 
of the influence of wife upon a man's character, 
there are few men strong enough to resist the in- 
fluence of a lower character in a wife; if she 
does not sustain and elevate what is highest in 
his nature she will speedily reduce him to her 
own level; thus the wife may be the making or 
the unmaking of the best of men. Having had 
opportunities to observe all this in my travels, 
and the study of human nature. One could al- 
most judge business men and form opinions as 
to who was who, in the home as well as in busi- 
ness generally. I would exercise caution with 
credit under such circumstances. Men as well 
as women ofttimes do things thinking no one 
will be the wiser. They must know their habits 
as well as their characters are as well known 
as their financial standing, in fact more so, as 
character is prized more than wealth; honesty 
more than credit, as honesty was everybody's 
capital; others their wealth. But if honesty 
was to exchange places with wealth, honesty 
would succeed and wealth would fail, as oft- 



108 MEANS TO ENDS. 

times wealth and honesty are strangers. They 
conflict as having already stated; no man is 
counted rich until he can reckon millions. Hav- 
ing my serious doubts if any man can do so and 
yet be honest; of course there are exceptions, 
it requires many gleamings to accumulate mil- 
lions. Many suffer the pangs of hunger in its 
course of manipulations. A great many ad- 
vantages are taken; we complain of them, but 
who makes them? the people are to blame for 
all. Who forms trusts? why the people. It is 
law that causes trusts, and then law seeks to 
regulate them. Men combine their interests 
against the ravages of law for mutual protec- 
tion; millionaires are formed from the same 
cause. It's law, law, too much law. Law is 
like capital punishment; no man ever lived to 
survive it. How strange but how true; these are 
facts that stand to reason, as nothing is law 
that is not reason. This causes the writer to 
announce the title of my next book, to follow 
this, entitled: "Cause and Effect." This book 
will blossom in truth and achievements from ex- 
perience, humiliation and despair. That dis- 
closes the solemn fact that there is a higher 
power than mortal man. Man may say, "you 
can't," but "try" will reveal "no can'ts." If 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 109 

there were more "try's" and less "can'ts" there 
would be less trusts and fewer millionaires. I 
envy no man his wealth or his success if hon- 
estly obtained. I also admire the man of any 
profession who expounds truth and power to 
uplift striving humanity. Not to embitter one 
against another; after all is said and done, life 
only represents the apple blossom, it buds and 
blossoms into fragrance, it grows and ripens 
into fruit and flavor and falls of its own weight. 
They differ in methods of propagating and cul- 
ture, nourishment an dsunshine; the more lofty 
branches produce the most perfect fruit; those 
that receive the greater sunshine, the most 
beautiful complexion. This is all in all the ap- 
proximate similarity in human nature. Having 
a friend, of much experience, come to my rescue 
in my absence by relating that the Gilt Edge 
Farmer was all right ; only he was twenty years 
ahead of the times; that is my failure, I admit, 
but as you grasp the ideas you may profit by 
them. 

Ten years ago when newspaper correspon- 
dence was one of my vocations, and having 
pleaded for the preservation of the Miami and 
Erie canal relating what advantages could be de- 
rived from its use by propelling boats by electric- 



110 MEANS TO ENDS. 

ity, and the benefit gardeners could derive 
from the cold storage packets. It was com- 
mented upon and to-day is being developed 
and soon will be one of the new enterprises. 
That was ten years ago given over to decay, 
while in other parts of the United States 
millions of dollars were being expended in 
duplicate form. It seems well. Enough can 
only survive in the lack of means to accom- 
plish the destructive end. Billions of dollars 
are spent daily by all nations in destructive 
means of warfare. Powerful ironclad gunboats 
were constructed and equipped with the most 
powerful guns, and powder, that represented 
floating arsenals. They built to excel all others, 
until the submerging torpedo boat was at last 
perfected, so small, yet so great as to render the 
greater at the mercy of the lesser. So with na- 
tions, so with men. Greatness is deplorable to 
say the least. 

It is when nations and men become great that 
evil surrounds them. Corporations endanger 
themselves in excellency, and pomp homes are 
made vertical palaces of hell, in gorgeous dis- 
play. They become distasteful and corrupt, 
common sense, common people, common homes 
are the three essentials of happiness. After 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. Ill 

coming from New York and leaving home with 
the many changes already mentioned, they had 
improved the old home in absence by replacing 
the log part by a frame structure. The old fire 
place was not there. Lace curtains and store 
carpets, bric-a-brac and rugs, base burner stoves 
and cushioned chairs, extension tables and linen 
spreads, silver ware and poreclain high lamps, 
and tapestry spring beds and mattresses, easels 
and foot rests. All the old idealities. They had 
arrayed all this and were living practically in 
the summer kitchen. The old home was gone, 
happiness went with it, life had lost all its 
charms. The change was too great, the cares 
were too many. The burdens were heavy, the 
shadows of dicontent were hovering over many 
once happy homes. Country life was too slow, 
cities began to boom from the influx from coun- 
try to city. Farming decreased, tenants sup- 
planted the owners, and practically speaking, the 
devil begun. It has been traveling a fast pace 
ever since until so worn, they need redressing. 
Any man of common sense, reason need not be 
twitted of the facts of his own folly but detest 
the humiliation to acknowledge the coin to better 
conditions but struggles on until the last ray of 
hope vanishes with the means to end. The wri- 



112 MEANS TO ENDS. 

ter knows his weakness, but like many others, 
powerless to strengthen because the time is not 
yet ripe to apply the remedy that is in practical 
methods in agriculture. Men to practice that 
which they preach, must be given the freedom of 
range as four-fifths of all tillable farms are tilled 
by tenants. Curbed and spiced with such dam- 
nable influence of undesirable ownership until 
discouragement and despair mingles in every 
movement. 

A farmer to be a success must be a farmer at 
heart. Most tenants are out of sorts and heart. 
Every tiller of the soil should own the land which 
he tills. A farmer cannot be a mere drudge and 
keep up with the absolute demands of his busi- 
ness. He must be progressive, it is not to be a 
matter of choice. The farmer of the next gener- 
ation must understand his business or get out of 
it and give place to one who does. The common 
irksome, don't care if I do, farmer is doomed. 
These conditions are not referred to as coming, 
but are upon us now. It is only a question of 
time that farming will be so changed by force of 
circumstances, that the man who remains blind 
from now until then in progress and knowledge 
and his methods through his practices to-day put 
him in the front rank, will be a back number, the 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 113 

man who now talks about knowing all about 
farming because his father was a farmer, and in- 
herited his methods. The writer was so enthusi- 
astic in nature's own research when a boy, that 
that was one of the causes of expulsion from the 
parental roof. Another was prejudice and jeal 
ousy that has followed me ever since. 

If the great common wealth would give agri- 
culturists the same power and protection as it 
does those who prey upon them, sovereignty 
would be transformed into servant, any one of in- 
telligence can predict the future in so far as his- 
tory repeating itself after being expelled from 
the farm becaues of the advancing methods, my 
thoughts and ideas always lingered with me, so 
great were they with me. Plans were being de- 
vised to put them into practice, feeling that time 
alone, the only means to end in the retreat from 
the frivolous methods of business to that of 
practical research in the natural scientific 
agricultural pursuit. All these were thoughts 
that had become so fixed that after having 
traveled from New York until past twenty 
years of age I had amased quite a sum of 
money and being well acquainted over five 
states, I concluded to shange my occupa- 

8 



114 MEANS TO ENDS. 

tion, as the constant travel was wearing on 
me. So I came to Toledo, Ohio, and en- 
gaged in the tobacco business, buying and selling 
on consignment. The firm that furnished the 
stock was considered in good standing, so much 
so, that the banks credited them to large amounts. 
I still continued the road, but in more moderate 
form. Having deposited collateral as security 
for stock handled. My income averaged me four 
hundred dollars per week. I kept this up at a 
lively pace, because the more one is making, the 
more eager they are for more, and the more they 
have, the more they want. I have failed to meet 
one who could say they were really satisfied. 
And the more one is accumulating, the easier it 
is to make more until the business gets too large 
for the man. The means and the urging com- 
plicationn of the business generally discloses 
the end, never saw it fail. 

Men of to-day who imagine the world would 
crumble to dust if not for them, will themselves 
return to dust and the world still move along 
just as though such a person never existed, only 
in prose. And generally such persons leave but 
little of this world's goods for litigation. This 
new venture was too good to keep, one of 
the firm went east, and involved them to 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 115 

such an extent in bad speculation as to 
cause them to assign. Well do I remem- 
ber the circumstance, I was attending one 
of those country exhibitions near Troy, Ohio, 
on Saturday night. In the midst of the 
program a messenger called my name, I arose 
and handing me a telegram, stating the firm had 
failed. Well, I had goods all over the country 
and knowing the results. After spending about 
six weeks cleaning up I found myself three hun- 
dred and fifty dollars worse off than nothing. 
The bank held this against me; I would have 
come out all right, but for the firm in filling my 
contracts with the stock that was practically 
worthless, as it was not what was bargained for, 
nor was it what sold to my trade. So the slaugh- 
ter in price was awful. After some time had 
elapsed the bank rendered a statement of my in- 
debtedness. Then employing an attorney to ef- 
fect a compromise of the three hundred and fifty 
dollars, I paid him twenty-five dollars for the first 
effort also the second. I saw I could keep that 
up until doom's day with no results, so dismissed 
him and consulted one of the directors and ef- 
fected a compromise for one hundred dollars, 
I could have done that in the first instance, if I 
had proceeded in the proper direction. I learned 



116 MEANS TO ENDS. 

valuable lessons all the while, smiled and said 
nothing. 

About that time my father gave each one 
thousand dollars except myself. My father had 
come in possession of a five acre tract of land 
with cozy brick cottage, barn and splendid or- 
chard. He offered this to any one of us for 
twelve hundred dollars, it cost him seventeen. 
As I was a secondary matter waiting for results, 
none of them seemed to want it. After they were 
all through, then I took it with the understand- 
ing that I was to pay four hundred dollars dif- 
ference for my allowance and piece of property. 
After all was settled I improved the place by 
fencing and painting, blinding the windows and 
new pumps. Fruit trees were replaced and other 
improvements were added. I was happy and 
contented. An old gentleman owned a small 
farm, forty-eight acres, across the road from me, 
I rented, it was excellent land, but he was very 
particular and of a miserly disposition, he had 
also money loaned. This was the farm we har- 
vested, the eight acres of wheat on, when a boy 
at home. I always said that some day I would 
own that farm, when a mere boy I admired it, it 
was level and rich soil. My father had not 
deeded me the five acres but I sonsidered his 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 117 

word as good as the deed and did not nrge the 
matter. But one rainy, gloomy evening my 
father road in and called me out and told me he 
would have to go back on the trade, but would 
give me no reasons, and have never learned the 
full particulars, but told me I could stay there 
until December the first. That was in August, 
well I was out in the cold once more. My father 
gave me eight hundred dollars. 

I began to look around, and the man that 
owned the farm I coveted, offered me the farm 
for forty-five hundred dollars and pay him five 
hundred dollars down. I could have my own 
time on the balance at six per cent interest on 
deferred payments. But he wanted to remain on 
the farm as he was old and afflicted with bright's 
disease. He had taken quite a liking to me. 
That winter I drove four miles east of him as 
he had sixteen acres of timber and always got his 
fuel there. I only lost nine days during the 
whole winter, cold and snow. The whole winter 
I received one dollar per day and board myself. 
That was quite a contrast from what I had been 
accustomed to but I did not mind that. I was 
more contented than when on the road as there 
was too much pandering to the trade to suit me. 
He had about two acres of orchard on the farm. 



118 MEANS TO ENDS. 

The trees were old and dead. They had borne 
themsleves into decay. He wanted them all off, 
and the best he would do was twenty-five cents 
per tree. There were fifty of them. They were 
to be cut in stove length. Weil, I took that, and 
the first one I tackled took me almost half a day 
to fell. They were to be stumped level with the 
soil. The old gentleman sat at the window all 
the day watching me. I worked two days before 
the fist tree was all trimmed of the branches, for 
it looked much larger down than when standing, 
I had to pile the brush also. Well,there was the 
trunk of the tree ; but all the while I was cleaning 
the trunk of its branches, I was doing some hard 
thinking. I knew apple-tree wood was of value, 
and knew the firm that used the timber for saw- 
handles. So I wrote them, and in a few days I 
received a reply, stating that they would pay four 
and one-half cents per foot, and gave instructions 
for sawing them. I told the landlord the trunks 
were difficult to work, and I would agree to move 
all the wood into the wood-shed for the trunks. 
He agreed to that, and then I went after them 
trees with a vim, after informing the firm that 
I would furnish them between one and two thou- 
sand feet of apple- tree lumber. The snow was 
still laying, and with bob-sleds I sleded the tim- 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 11# 

ber to the mill, and shipped the lumber to Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio. In a few days I received a draft 
for fifty-four dollars and forty cents. With the 
twelve dollars and fifty cents due me for cutting 
the wood, I had sixty-six dollars and ninety cents. 
But I was about fifty days in all. Now the 
reader may think strange of all this, after being 
on the road for five years, surrounded by all the 
brilliancy and luxury in the most fashionable 
hotels, mingling with people of note, as custom 
would judge them. I can frankly say that these 
were the happiest days of all. There was twelve 
acres of wheat I had sown on the farm. The 
wheat was good. After harvest he must have 
the stubbles raked, as that was, in those days, 
always considered profitable, after self-rake 
harvesters. I did that, and I was four days in 
all, because they were treaded by horses on the 
barn floor. I did the work all myself, and after 
it was all done and cleaned up, there was only 
one and one-half bushels, I going to the house 
and telling him how much there was. He told 
me just to put his share in the grainery. Three 
pecks was my share for four days' labor and board 
myself. Still I did not mind that. What was 
in my mind was to own the farm. 



120 MEANS TO ENDS. 

It began to be talked about that the farm 
was for sale; there was one who wanted the 
farm also; he was a retired doctor, but I must 
say a practical farmer. He followed it for the 
recreation there was in it, not so much for the 
profits, because he owned a large dry goods 
store also, that his son looked after. I was not 
aware of something, but the first thing I knew 
he had bought the farm from under me. My in- 
tention was to buy the farm regardless of my 
father's protest; well, I was out once more. 
The price paid was five thousand dollars, a little 
more than I was to pay for it; still I thought I 
would some day own that farm. But while all 
this was going on, the five acres that I thought 
was mine was sold to my eldest brother, and the 
deed made at once. Then my uncle, where the 
German young man lived, offered to do so well 
by me that he stated he would make me richer 
than all of them. So I bought twenty acres of 
him, built a new brick house, barn and all out- 
buildings; his farm consisted of ninety-six acres. 
Having all the necessary buildings completed 
by the first of December; there was six acres of 
timber on the twenty acres that furnished much 
of the timber for the buildings; this timber 
land grew up very densely with undergrowth, 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 121 

second growth, ash and beach timber, consist- 
ing mostly of all except some elm. What would 
not make lumber was worked into wood; the 
wood was traded for other material, and about 
all the cash outlay was for brick and labor. 
The house was located at the corner of timber 
land and enough of second growth ash was left 
to form a small grove around the buildings ; the 
stone was taken from my father's quarry and 
when the place was completed it was a very cozy 
little farm. The first yield on the farm was 
very good; crops were excellent. The second 
year there was a twenty acre clover field for 
corn. It was a red sandy soil and the clover 
was very heavy; so heavy was it that it was 
about all one could do to get it under, but roll- 
ing coulters did very well. The season was some- 
what wet and the corn grew well. Having a 
double corn plow, using the small shovels until 
the fourth time cultivating, as the soil was very 
mellow with all that crop of clover. It did not 
require but shallow cultivation. My uncle com- 
plained all the while and wanted the larger 
shovels used. He went so far as to bring my 
father over in order to get me to do as they did : 
hill the corn up, dig down, and of what else 
would be hard to mention. I told them that 



122 MEANS TO ENDS. 

when the corn was gathered and it did not out- 
yield all the other, then it was time to convince 
me they were right. When harvest came my 
uncle was bound to have his way. So while 
busy in the harvest field he undertook to give it 
the finishing touch with a single plow, one of 
those large shovels that would do for a drainage 
plow. Plowing one-half day, he tired of that; 
but when husking time came that would not 
yield one-half the other. In gathering the corn, 
two wagons were used with one team, in order 
not to have so much to pick up in the field that 
was being husked while unloading at the crib. 
The corn crib was built with a basement, so that 
in emptying them we would drive beneath and 
the corn was let into the wagon by trap doors; 
it saved shoveling. There were two cribs with 
driveway between; they held eight hundred 
bushels each. My uncle volunteered to unload 
the one wagon while we were filling the other. 
We always selected the best ears for seed as un- 
loaded and kept that in the crib loft. I allowed 
him to do that until finding that all the seed 
was taken from my load, as we divided it by the 
load; so one could do very well to unload them 
at that rate; so after that I would bring one man 
from the field to unload and told him to pick 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 123 

from both loads, as the seed corn was as much 
his as mine and as much mine as his. That's 
the way he intended to make me rich; that is 
only one instance. He had always worked hard 
and to see some one else getting half and he only 
half was too much for him; he still wanted it 
all. I stood it four years and then sold out. 
as each year grew more stringent. He offered 
me twenty-five hundred dollars for my place but 
I wanted thirty-five; he thought that he could 
get it and keep a man as he could farm the place 
to better advantage and all the crops, as all the 
crops grown while there, yielded large. The 
twenty acres of corn filled both cribs, sixteen 
hundred bushels was the best yield around. In 
the meantime my brother sold the five-acre tract 
and moved to the state of Kentucky. He 
bought a farm there, and was there two years, 
and lost about all he had except forty acres. 
So disgusted was he that he offered the forty 
acres for sale or trade. I traded him out of that 
and done very well with it. The forty acres did 
not cost me to exceed ten dollars. In the first 
start, having bought an ash tree-top for one dol- 
lar and fifty cents, paid help one dollar to saw 
it with me, and traded the wood for a grain drill 
and double harrow, then trading the two for 



124 MEANS TO ENDS. 

forty acres of land. About that time my cousin 
came home from Indiana, on a peddling expedi- 
tion. He had a good wagon, harness, four-year- 
old horse, blankets, whip, and trunk of notions. 
We then traded, even up, for the forty acres, in 
the clean up, the ash top worked into wood, with 
two dollars invested netted more than two hun- 
dred dollars. Then after clearing off the six 
acres of timber with the undergrowth, it was a 
difficult matter to kill them out as they would 
continually sprout up again. Taking part of 
this money I bought 45 head of culled sheep, 
at one fifty per head, mostly all old ews. Wish- 
ing to have them clean up the clearing, so thick 
was the sprouts that it was perfectly green. 
The sheep relished the tender shoots, and by 
keeping them salted, in about six weeks they 
had cleaned up every vestage of shrubbery. 
Then they were sold to the butcher at three dol- 
lars and fifty cents per head. Then I began to 
turn my attention to Jersey cattle, there were 
few of them around. I was censured by all for 
having such dwarfs of cattle. The butcher rid- 
iculed them, but having a fancy for them I kept 
right on very slowly, and also, keeping a sharp 
lookout for a buyer for the place. My uncle 
was getting closer each succeeding year, and 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 125 

my confidential plans were to get away from 
the surroundings. It took time. Finally after 
four years in a man-trap, I released myself by 
finding a buyer for the little place. Thirty-two 
hundred dollars was the price offered, so I sold. 
As my uncle was scheming to get the place for 
twenty-four hundred, was one cause of each suc- 
ceeding year demanding things of greater de- 
pression in order to compel me to accept his 
terms. They were trying to say that the last 
hope was beginning to dawn upon me, that now 
I would try again for the coveted prize. The 
foryt-eight-acre farm that the Doctor had 
bought that I wanted. Going into his dry-good 
store one bitter, cold Saturday afternoon, and 
accosting him without much preliminary agrea- 
ble remarks, but striking home the question: 
" Doctor, what will you take for your farm? " 
He seemed astonished, but jokingly, remarked: 
" what would you give? " I knew bartering 
was of no avail, and that possession depended 
upon my satisfactory bid. Having made up my 
mind about the figure that would buy it, so I 
frankly and unhesitatingly informed the Doc- 
tor that I would give six thousand dollars. He 
had improved the land however, more than the 
buildings by tiling. The barn had been re- 



126 MEANS TO ENDS. 

shingled, all these were taken into consideration 
in the offer. Well, he said smilingly, " that's an 
offer." As he had not thought about selling, to 
come in one week from that day and he would 
decide, in the meantime abiding the time deter- 
mined the sale and once more was in the way 
to put practice into operation. After becoming 
noised about that six thousand dollars was paid 
for forty acres, men who owned from fifteen to 
seventeen farms, tilled by tenants, hooted at the 
idea, stating I would not make four per cent, on 
the investment. Well, I knew they could not, 
but I would. Some said I was crazy. Some 
predicted failure, a few predicted my success. 
No one knew what or how I was going to pro- 
ceed. But they surmized and victimized as boy- 
ish principals now were being transformed into 
manhood, sobriety and thought, tempered with 
experience in business methods obtained on the 
road had left its impress in trial and patience. 
My plans were so mapped out as to require, at 
least, thirty years to execute them all. They 
represented the cogs in wheels that drive the 
machinery of commerce, one was useless with- 
out the other. As I now had the land and the 
experience, but there were hidden foes that 
that were never dreamed of, and trials that tired 



A HEEDING SOLICITUDE. 127 

one's soul, and friends that were as wolves in 
sheeps clothing. Neighbors that would cor- 
rupt the annuals of a quiet neighborhood. Pro- 
fessions that would steal in upon you as the 
thief, in the darkness. Prosperity dug its own 
grave. Industry un-rewarded, the glowing ac- 
counts in the eight years on the farm of trials 
and experiment. Sunshine and happiness, sor- 
row and humiliation in the trials of right of 
possession, and the knowledge gained from ex- 
perience, yet while I believe in time the good 
will outweigh the bad. Yet how thorny is the 
path and how un-happy the pilgrimage to him 
who dares to do his duty. There are no flowers 
except a few boquets, snatched from the graves 
of fallen foes. There is no happiness except 
the transcient thrill of cruel triumph which 
passes like a shadow across the heart. Every 
earnest, practical, scientific agriculturalist is 
only a victim for food for vultures and trouble 
for the fruit of his labor turn to ashes on the 
lifes of others. To me there is nothing in the 
world so pathetic as the ignorance and false- 
hood of professions in attempting to subsist from 
the labors of others in the practice of law and 
similar professions. He is like a mariner with- 
out a compass, drifting on the terapest-tossed 



128 MEANS TO ENDS. 

waves of uncertainty, between the smiling cliffs 
of hope and the frowning crags of fear. He is 
a walking petition and a living prayer. He is 
the pack-horse of public sentiment He is the 
dromedary in politics, and even if he reaches the 
goal of his ambitions, he will soon feel the beak 
of the vulture in his heart and the fang of the 
serpent in his soul, I am no longer a victim of 
such vicissitudes, never again will I be. Ex- 
perience has revealed precious memories, grat- 
itude and unweaving confidence, fortified with 
such means and of such character in truth as 
will determine the cause and produce the effect. 
As the tragedies of life are not without cause, 
and no cause without effect; also, no effect with- 
out some cause. I now stand on the peaceful 
summit and proclaim right and justice to striv- 
ing humanity. All this will be clearly illus- 
trated in our next book, entitled : " Cause and 
Effect," and the finishing touches of means to 
ends. 



INDIVIDUALITY, 

THE greatest achievements of mankind come 
by chance, by coming in contact with the 
unforseen means Avhich produced the re- 
sults that brought about the existing Means to 
Ends, with a peculiar strain of mind and thought 
concentrated upon some particular idea or act, 
by those whom the world condemned as odd, 
peculiar in their ways and manners; who pos- 
sessed undaunted will and brain power, far- 
seeing in their ways of natural powers, that per- 
haps required years of ardent self-sacrificing 
energy to execute and accomplish. These are 
the real characters that pave the pathway for 
future existence. 

They are those who have risen from the most 
humble walks of life. Born of good and noble 
parentage, brought up under Christian influences, 
reared under the most trying circumstances of 
extreme poverty from the lack of means to make 
ends meet in the real necessaries of life. 

'Tis those who have gained such knowledge 
from the book of life and experience, by coming 
in contact with that which is real. It leaves 

9 (129) 



130 MEANS TO ENDS. 

such impress that no theory or book-learning 
can combat against it. Diplomas and valedic- 
tories are as aught in comparison. Nature has 
so provided and blessed each, and endowed them 
with such faculties, as enable one to accomplish 
or promote some feat impossible for any other; 
or perform some act that would be utterly im- 
possible for any other to perform. 

The great tendencies of the present age and 
modern life, with its many avenues of allure- 
ments of ficticious gains with enormous combin- 
ations; its concentrations of vast enterprises of 
Interests and Effects, and vast fortunes, is to 
quash some one's individuality. 

The very atmosphere of which we breathe 
and have our being seems charged with such 
tyranical and malicious obstructions, which an- 
nihilate individual progress. 

There is a duty one owes to himself, that is, 
to know thyself and preserve and develop your 
own personalities, and not allow others to hinder 
you in well-doing or developing, or your sur- 
roundings or environments to rob you of your 
distinction or personality; for you have a work 
no other can do. Every individual wears the 
royal stamp and seal of God. Do not allow any 
act or deed to efface the stamp placed upon you 



INDIVIDUALITY. 131 

by the Divine Hand to distinguish you from all 
other men. It is your duty to preserve your 
individuality as you would your character, 
for it is a part of yourself. Experience has 
taught me many lessons of self-help. When 
my fellow-man insinuates impossibilities or 
failures, that does not signify a fact. For 
when nature made me she distinguished me 
from my fellow-man. There is no one else like 
me in the universe. No one else who can do 
quite as well the thing I was especially made to 
do; and I have some particular advantages over 
any other being ever born. These are the advant- 
ages I strive to make the most of. I find that 
which effects self most commands the greater 
respect than trying to be another than thyself, or 
to imitate or mimick. The trouble with most 
of us it that we are content to be mere machines 
— no good without some one to operate or turn 
the crank — sort of a miniature copy of what 
has been, not what should be. Yet since no two 
human beings are made alike, no one can quite 
take the place of another, or can he do quite as 
easily, or quite as well, the thing the other was 
made to do. It is foolish, as well as disastrous, 
to try to mould oureslves to a different pattern 
from what nature intended for us. 



132 MEANS TO ENDS. 

It is better to be an original hod-carrier than 
an imitation farmer. I say farmer, because that 
is first in importance. One can be anything else, 
but he cannot be a successful farmer. Whatever 
you are or whatever you do, be yourself. Be 
original, be just ; just plain self. The world has 
not demanded that you be a great lawyer, a great 
politician, merchant, or physician, or a vulture, 
that you may soar aloft in quest of prey, and 
pounce down upon the most innocent, by being 
empowered with some great commonwealth or 
municipality with the weapon of laws that you 
may hold over the heads of your fellow-being, 
that you may exact tribute without just cause of 
reason. 

For strong reasons make strong actions. 
But it does require that you shall so conduct 
yourself through life as to uplift and not blight 
your fellow-man. So as to help and not hinder. 
So as to elevate and not degrade them. It does 
ask that you shall not gain wealth by impover- 
ishing those who have helped you to become 
wealthy. That your accumulations of your 
vast fortune is clear, and not seared with the 
guilt of trying to sacrifice your competitor by 
any deception or unjust act. It demands that 
your wealth shall not be stained by despoiling 



INDIVIDUALITY. 133 

happy and contented homes or the blood of wid- 
ows and orphans. That you shall not lift your- 
self up by tearing others down, and that you 
display your individuality that others may 
know your motives without discriminating 
against just measures or good instinct. Apply 
the golden rule in business, at home, and 
abroad. Your aspirations will abound with 
the search-light of honest inquiry, with display 
of your individuality in lifes pursuit. 

As I am writing this, I rest my weary brain 
with a glance from the window over the smooth 
green lawn, with the breeze gently swaying the 
tender foliage of the large maple beneath the 
scorching descending rays of the mid-day sun. 
As the hot breezes are wafted through the green 
foliage of the nearby corn field, the blades curl 
themselves up, that they may protect them- 
selves and be spared for the anticipated morn- 
ing dew that they may convey the moisture to 
the stock and twinkle down to the well-nigh 
famished roots, that they may in return receive 
nourishment and all new life and strength 
to support themselves again and breath new 
life into the tender plant, and gather fragments 
of moisture for substance. 



134 MEANS TO ENDS. 

There, just emerged from the cornfield 
is a man, bent with the infirmities of age. He 
carries a hoe, and leans upon it for support to 
rest his weary and careworn body. He raises 
his hat and wipes the prespiration from his 
troubled and wrinkled brow. Care has 
ploughed deep furrows over his withered face. 
He seems in deep meditation over a life well 
nigh spent. Just a few weeks ago his life-long 
help-mate was laid to rest. 

Wearied of the struggles of life and suc- 
cumbed to that fate we all must meet, "Death!" 
Being in meager circumstances, owning a little 
home, they had a son, that was schooled through 
the common city schools, then a college course 
was persued, the parents were without means. 
The little home was mortgaged in order that 
the son's ambition might be appeased. The 
son graduated, and is now a professor in a col- 
lege, but the mortgage is still there. The old 
folks have struggled and denied themselves, 
slaved and saved, and the mortgage grew in 
the same uroportion that the son advanced. 
The son receives a liberal salary, but as a pro- 
fessors position in life is of such a nature 
socially, that in order to keep up with the social 
standings and surroundings, the son would not 



INDIVIDUALITY. 135 

deny himself of the pleasures that his parents 
denied themselves of, in order that he could 
enjoy his. No doubt the parents expected some 
compensation, not anticipating the habits of the 
college-life, would also bring with it such as to 
forever dissolve the loved and cherished home, 
that is so dear to us in our childhood days. 
That should be perpetuated from generation to 
generation as a living monument in cherished 
memories of the old folks home. 

These circumstnces abound everywhere. 
From the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the lakes 
to the gulfs which have left their imprints from 
over-indulgence in education, obtained from 
means without exertion or conpensation that in 
time reacts upon both body and mind in such 
secret measures, that absorbes all feeling of 
the approaching end. Start any young man 
out without the least knowledge of the world or 
devoid of experience with ample means. You 
can almost reckon the time of the end. Show 
me the young man who has worked his way 
through college, through hardships and toil, and 
I will show you a man. You will find him at 
the head of state, or building ships to drive the 
commerce of the Maine, or most likely you fin 3 
him in some picturesque valley gazing upon his 



136 MEANS TO ENDS. 

flocks basketing in the sunshine upon the hill- 
side. The latter is where you obtain sweet re- 
pose, and happy contented homes. Young men 
leave the farm with alluring circumstances and 
delusions at the age of diversion from boyhood 
to manhood, between the ages of 15 and 17. 
Just at the time and age when he thinks he 
must be consulted upon all subjects with his 
mind roving and expanding with the changes of 
nature, and that everything depends upon him, 
and that his every whim must be satisfied, and 
that although he makes intolerable surround- 
ings and aching hearts, when in reality that is 
just the period of his life when he knows the 
least. His mind is wondering, his thoughts are 
fixing their courses. If this period of boy's 
lives could be passed over without over-indul- 
gence of gratification and distasteful expecta- 
tions with good books and the training of 
thought, there would be more homes intact and 
fewer broken-hearted parents. The family 
circle would be perpetuated for future enjoy- 
ment. 

Mothers are to blame for much of the 
blighted young men's life. They are mere sissies. 
They have required more of the feminine sex 
than the masculine. They part their hair in the 



INDIVIDUALITY. 187 

middle and curl their locks. About all the father 
has to do or say is to supply the means to main- 
tain it. The mother does not seem to apply the 
same affection for the daughters as the son. 
They oft times go out in the world and acquire 
more of a business taste than domestic and femi- 
nine ways. When women become masculine^ 
men seem to lose that feminine respect. It is 
well and truly said that "the woman who rocks 
the cradle rules the world." 

A reversal of motives displayed in educa- 
tional home building will abound with sweet 
enthusiasm and sound the key-note of praise 
with its echo in every quarter of the globe. 
Happy homes come from within, in order to re- 
spond to that which comes from without. Very 
often, yes, very often, is the sad fact brought be- 
fore me that family life is a burden to some of 
our men and women. In this day of intelligence 
and refinement the family should be the place 
where these two arts should be found. But alas, 
how often is it the contrary. Nov/ some one must 
be to blame, and who is it? Instead of home 
being a veritable Paradise, it is very often a 
hot-bed of discontentt and dissatisfaction. It 
is worth a good deal to be in a congenial atmos- 
phere, says one; and especially one who loves 



138 MEANS TO ENDS. 

quiet and gentle manners, to be surrounded by 
loving people. Let us analyze the situation from 
a common standpoint. There are generally 
two required to make a home; a man and a 
woman. Very often they come from two entirely 
different habitations, which leaves its impress. 
Now when they have entered this union or con- 
tract to erect a new home, did one give one 
thought to improvement over their former sur- 
roundings. Will they both try to do their part 
and each their duty. Take, for instance, a case 
of those over-indulged in book-learning, or one 
who has been unfortunately born with a pretty 
and winning face and fine form, who finds her- 
self allured to the office or behind the counter, for 
it has almost become an epidemic to escape the 
real duties of life and seek that of less responsi- 
bility and ease. Are these capable and well- 
advanced in views of home-making to enter In 
such a holy task? 

Mothers, guard your daughters while in their 
youth, and instruct them moro diligently along 
the line of happy home-building. Does it not 
seem sad to see a home — and it is too often 
seen — where one is all the time having to ten 
the other to do this duty or that? Sometimes, 
or repeatedly, it is the husband who tries to 



INDIVIDUALITY. 139 

please the wife; and it has almost become the 
opinion of the writer that if these little pleasures 
were sufficiently noticed by the wife, a happy 
home would result. He provides a pleasant home 
with agreeable surroundings. Does she try to 
show her appreciation by keeping everything in 
the best possible order, so that when he comes 
in from work his sense of order, which is very 
acute in workman's lives, be it high or low, is not 
jarred in this instance? If such is the case, he 
is made to feel that his efforts are appreciated, 
and that home is the sweetest place on the face 
of the earth, and no power save death could lure 
him away, are the words of a man talking on this 
subject recently. 

There are many people in the world, and sad 
that it must be said, but too many of our Ameri- 
can girls have an idea that they have no part in 
the drama of life, especially in home-building. 
They think that after marriage, all that is to be 
done is to receive pettings from the lover in his 
new position, and they get an idea that their hus- 
bands ought to be satisfied with them whether 
or no, simply because they have assumed the posi- 
tion as wife, and must be petted and caressed at 
any time. They forget that in their courtship 
days they applied different rules to the life. Oh, 



140 MEANS TO ENDS. 

far different. How closely the little parlor was 
guarded, and sweetly arranged for his coming. 
A vase of flowers here, and a little cozy chair 
near the fire; all to welcome the lover. Such 
little things in themselves, but huge factors in 
the up-building of the lovers ideal home. Girls 
forget theselittle things when once in the role of 
wife ; and it is many times the great silent sword 
that cuts the happiness from the home. How. 
often the husband returns from his systematic 
duties of every pusuit of life, and finds no light 
to beam forth his welcome. No, not a ray of light 
in the little nest of a parlor to welcome him. No 
cozy chair by the fire. No flowers to speak forth 
in silent sweetness of the love for the beautiful 
No wife to greet him at the door. All the little 
idealities gone. True she may be hovering over 
a sick child, with its life in the balance. But 
what is mother the symbol of? She must rise 
above the common-place nurse and still 
" mother " her lover as husband. She must be 
the highest of creation. A mother indeed to her 
own offspring, and to the great boy she has taken 
as a part of herself. Forget not the husband is 
caring for the little ones. Teach them that 
" Father " comes first in the home, and his heart 
will be one of stone if he proves untrue to his 



INDIVIDUALITY. 141 

own. The wife and mother must be the verita- 
ble Saviour in her home. She must forget 
" self " in her sacrificial duties which, if done in 
love, are the happiest after all, and the husband 
will soon catch the spirit of the life, and nothing 
will be too precious for that Christ-like wife and 
mother. The wife must never think her wishes 
and desires supreme to every one else. In the 
little things, even in cooking, seek always to 
please him ; and you will find in the end your own 
heart has been pleased also. It would be a pleas- 
ure to whisper into the ears of our young women 
the " secret of happy home-building ;" for until 
this takes place in the world, the world will never 
grow better. Marriage welds the connecting 
link in the chain of life. The future strength 
of the life-chain depends largely upon the mate- 
rial one who has the birthright of happiness, as 
the majority of people however born under civ- 
ilized conditions, are unwelcome to their moth- 
ers. Acquaint yourself with the nobility of the 
old world as well as the new. This is sad, but 
true. We seek to redress all evils by law. We 
cannot suppress vice by law. The greatest re- 
forms are kindled upon our mother's knee and are 
wafted into flame as manhood approaches. You 
cannot remedy by statutory law that which the 



142 MEANS TO ENDS. 

laws of nature has instilled in and flows through 
the life-blood of the individual soul, and only 
awaits the opportunity to display the individu- 
ality or the true self that may have been smould- 
ering for years. Every person is surrounded 
with environments and invisible forces of the 
laws of nature, if thoughtfully and intelligently 
used, tend to health, wealth and prosperity ; and 
the means in the end of productive genius of both 
mind and body, leisurely applied, will stimulate 
greater action and drive away discouragements 
and clear up your mind, that you may see things 
as they really are in the light of the truth and 
knowledge of the wrong. Economy in all things 
is essential to success. Economy is of itself a 
great revenue. Its practice will lead to won- 
drous results in every act and deed. When a 
boy in one of the largest wholesale grocery houses 
of New York city, I was asigned as my first 
task in undoing packages wrapped with heavy 
cord. I supposed that haste was the watch- 
word in such busy places, so I cut the cord, sup- 
posing that was the proper thing to do, not 
dreaming that haste makes waste. But I was 
soon informed that all cords were carefully saved 
by untieing the knots and applied on out-going 
packages. I found that in the course of one day 



INDIVIDUALITY. 143 

several dollars worth of cord had been saved, and 
that in the course of one year would have 
amounted to several hundred dollars. That was 
lesson number one. I learned still greater prac- 
tices of economy, that in the end would have 
amounted to several thousands of dollars yearly 
I also learned that it was not the largest trans- 
actions that produced the largest results, but the 
smaller ones were the most coveted prizes. I 
was taught better at home than to have cut the 
cords, but I did not imagine that such practice 
was of any great importance in the great Ameri- 
can metropolis, New York City. I was under the 
impression that everything was with a rush, rip, 
roar and a hurrah. From what I had observed in 
the two days I had been there, I felt sort of out 
of place, just like I was in everyone's way, and 
when I found the opportunity to vent my feelings 
is the manner in which I went after those pack- 
ages with the above result, when if I had prac- 
ticed my individuality as I had been taught at 
home on the farm, where every particle of cord 
from the least to the greatest was carefully saved, 
huge balls of common wrapping-twine was al- 
ways displayed for additional pieces, that store 
purchases were tied with. Oft times mother 
would allow me to make balls out of the common 



144 MEANS TO ENDS. 

cotton twine of these savings, by using a piece 
of rubber for the center and wrapping the twine 
around it until the size wanted. Then cut the 
red sheep-skin lining out of old boot-tops for a 
covering, that was, they were used for many 
purposes. Ofttimes nail boxes were made out 
of them by fitting round pieces of board 
for the bottom and tacked in, and a string 
through the finger-straps on the top of the 
boot-leg, tied around your body, made a very 
convenient and handy nail box. They came 
very handy in building board fences, shing- 
ling roofs, and many other places on the 
farm. Such acts and uses should have taught me 
to practice the same economy in New York City, 
or allowed my individuality to display the bet- 
ter part of itself. 

I learned very rapidly, and soon began to 
adapt myself to my surroundings and take on 
city airs, but only for a brief time, until one 
evening I found myself loaded down until I re- 
sembled more of a pack-mule than a human 
being with sample cases. I was tendered the 
best wishes and success to crown my efforts 
from the house, and assisted to the Hudson 
Kiver ferry. I crossed the river, boarded a 
train on the Erie Eailroad in Jersey City bound 



INDIVIDUALITY. 145 

for the west, Cleveland, Ohio being my first 
stop. The first business house I called at was 
a large one. I asked for the buyer, he was in 
the office, I approached him, and introduced 
myself by stating whom I represented of New 
York City. His reply was that he did not care 
who I represented, he did not want anything 
in my line. Well, that was rather stunning 
for my first trip — my first call — but I made 
up my mind it would not be my last one. I 
told him as mildly as I could, that I would be 
in the city a day or two and would call again 
before leaving. Well, I started out full of am- 
bition and hope, but I again displayed poor 
judgment and if I had displayed more of my- 
self and individuality I would have not called 
at the house at the time I did, it being about 
six o'clock in the evening.. I never tried to 
do business with a man since, that is just be- 
fore lunch-time. For empty stomachs are poor 
reasoners. A man is always at his best 
when well-fed, and the most easily persuaded 
with good reason and judgment. As stated, I 
was ambitious, but I have learned since the 
dangers of ambition. I am now full of aspira- 
tion and less ambition. Ambition digs her own 
10 



146 MEANS TO ENDS. 

grave, and builds monuments of remorse and 
despair in over-indulgence in every walk of life. 
Let the attention be called to the dangers of 
ambition. Ambition build empires to fall and 
crumble. It forms pools and gigantic combi- 
nations, it builds jealousy, prejudice, it creates 
selfishness and greed. It deadens ones own 
conscience. It unmans the very principal of 
the foundation and stability of any govern- 
ment. It has been the custom of every race to 
commend the ambitious youth to admire and to 
worship the man whose ambition has achieved 
for him high rank in comparison with others 
of to-day. 

Ambition seems to be the dominant 
emotion, driving men to wealth, or fame, or 
position. Ambition leads men to sacrifice both 
friend and foe. Ambition deface manhood, it 
mocks justice; creates ficticious values without 
means to ends. The college student thinks 
that he possesses the crowning elements of 
character, if only he have the ambition to sur- 
pass his class and win future ascendency. 
This spirit in our youth, and even in tender 
years of our childhood, is fostered and fixed 
and commended by the majority of those 
counted thoughtful. But are they thoughtful? 



INDIVIDUALITY. 147 

Ambition creates deception. Ambition de- 
vastates homes and the soil, and diverts the 
the real into imaginary delusions that leaves 
its impress for aspiration. There is a vast dis- 
tinction between ambition and aspiration. A 
careful examination of Webster's definitions 
of these words results in the conclusion that 
ambition aims to surpass others, and aspira- 
tion to surpass self. 

Therefore, aspiration is always good and 
commendable, while ambition is always evil. 
Ambition is being bitterly contested with 
strife, against warfare in national, state, 
municipal and individual affairs, with such 
means as will terminate in the end as to drive 
ambition from our nature and give way to as- 
piration. We have our periods of season, the 
spring equinox is the time of conflict between 
the firm north wind, wild and destructive in 
its struggle to retain its way. And the sooth- 
ing south wind strongly advancing to foster the 
life of the new spring time. The present time, 
the beginning of the twentieth century, the 
turn of affairs are of such magnitude and per- 
plexity as to wholly engulf or sanction timely 
suggestions of those who aspire to the greatest 
good for the greatest number. This is the 



148 MEANS TO ENDS. 

equinoxial period of the desparate struggle of 
ambition to hold its place against the steady 
onward all-conquering march of aspiration 
Ambition is the motive power of the Nine- 
teenth Century, it contains an alluring fascina- 
tion of honor and fame in the competitive sys- 
tem now, not merely a struggle for supremacy, 
but even a fight for existence. Ambition is 
driving conditions nearer and nearer the awful 
abyss with each pulsation of action of addi- 
tional means to balance accounts. 

With every act the pulse quickens until 
ambition gives way to emotion and convulsions 
within and without. Ambition devours the 
means that prompted the ends. This is the 
point that tries men's souls. Ambition gives 
way to individuality. Individuality grasps as- 
piration. Aspiration is the spirit in which we 
now move. The twentieth century dawns with 
equal rights and systems that will establish 
an over-prosperous relationship. Mutual re- 
cognition and justice; ambition contains the 
seed of its own destruction. Aspiration is the 
soothing element of mankind. All who are 
the dupes of ambition will witness their own 
downfall. All who are imbued with aspiration 
are wise in their own counsel. Their con- 



INDIVIDUALITY. 149 

science is justice. The children and the youths 
of to-day are taught that if they are ambitious 
to be at the head of their class, or to surpass 
others in study or work, or to be chosen vale- 
dictorian, or to graduate with highest compar- 
ative honors, and to excel others in later life. 
Even though this work be a good one, that if 
they serve in competitive sports or delight in 
oratorical or other competitive contests, they 
are cultivating in themselves a plant whose 
fruit will be their own poison and certain 
death. One need not mention history or refer 
to personal tranactions to prove the assertion. 
Teach the young to aspire to learn all they can, 
to do all they should, to be what they ought to 
be. Teach them to honor their parents, teach 
them the natural and unnatural, teach them 
spiritually, rather than worldly; teach them 
self-support, economy, and self-sacrifice , the 
value of virtue and morality; teach them the 
value of time and obedience, teacn them the 
value of character, and to choose such associ- 
ates as will uplift rather than degrade. At- 
tain and aspire to those who are diligently 
seeking out the truth of honest livlihood and 
self-government. 



150 MEANS TO ENDS. 

'Tis not the great and daring deeds we do 
or accomplish in life that brings the greatest 
rewards and blessings and contentments. 'Tis 
the ideal, the individuality that measures the 
man. The greatest men and the greatest 
minds were of these types. They were most all 
fanner's boys, and poor at that. They were 
men who met success and failures with 
the same demeanor. If success crowned 
them they were the same type of manhood, ten- 
der-hearted, and in sympathy with the whole 
world. Fascinating and sincere, they had 
been reared with nature. They were such in- 
dividually who labored by day and read by the 
dim candle-light or beneath the branches of the 
towering oak or elm, or by the light of the 
home fireside. They rehearsed their subjects 
in labor, while surrounded by nature. Their 
physical and mental capacity expanded. They 
earned their bread by the sweat of their brow, 
and broadened their intellect and their know- 
ledge from the proceeds of their physical 
strength surrounded by and absorbing the 
great book of life, " nature," which contains 
the greatest store of knowledge, greater even 
than ever was written by man. So marvelous 
and so grand are the attainments that the half 



INDIVIDUALITY. 151 

has never been told. Learned men write and 
theorize upon all subjects and are acted upon 
by experiment until greater theories dominate 
the lesser ones. Ancient history report the 
fact that the earth was flat, until stronger 
theory demonstrated more clearly that the 
earth was round, when it's not positive that is 
correct. Of course we are all taught and be- 
lieve such to be a fact, but no positive assurance 
have we that science is correct. The future 
ages may have cause and good reasons to dif- 
fer with us as we have to ridicule the past. 
Nothing has ever fell off the earth, or has any 
of the great bodies of water spilled out yet 
when the earth revolved upon its axis every 
twenty-four hours, or that any human being 
ever lost his balance and fell off to come back 
and tell us all about it. Still we are taught 
gravitation to overcome a doubt There is a 
question of doubt in many of our scientific re- 
searches. While the weariness and sadness of 
life comes from presistently closing our eyes to 
its greatness, there is no life so humble or so 
poor, as that which, through too close a grasp 
of visible things has lost all conscious hold up- 
on unseen realities of nature. Wafted into the 
atmosphere of infinite greatness, the soulTt- 



152 MEANS TO ENDS. 

self grows great in coming in contact with the 
touch of nature and soars aloft in quest of 
greater truths that abound everywhere. If we 
will only train our minds and thoughts to ab- 
sorb them. For it only needs a little more 
thought, a little more courage, and a little 
more eagerness, and a little more means to end 
one of the most abused theories ever perpet- 
uated upon and civilized nation. We make 
dupes and dudes of foreign missionaries, as 
our representatives of civilization, when even 
heathen China could teach us the Christian 
ideal of respecting and honor of the aged. 
Nations, like persons, are slow to profit by 
the experience of others. When the rural dis- 
tricts are compelled to capture emigrant trains 
of foreign nations, and act like bandits in order 
to gain assistance to harvest the crops because 
of heathens in foreign lands, and the unnatural 
allurements of youth to study the art of science 
and learn to make a living without toil, and the 
proceeds of the labor of foreign element sus- 
taining and growing under the element of the 
whims of professions, that is the cause of op- 
pression. Thousands of colleges with thou- 
sands of professors who are actually too lazy to 
draw their breath, but manage to exert energy 



INDIVIDUALITY. 153 

enough to draw their salary and have a good 
time in spending it. There are thousands of 
students that fill these universities and col- 
leges that are mostly from the rural districts. 
Allured there not because of their natural in- 
clinations for likely professions, but the indus- 
try needs their money more than their presence. 
They generally require from four to six years 
course to form such habits as to humiliate the 
old folks at home and reduce them to pinching 
poverty. The presidents of most all colleges 
are fluent talkers, and are supposed to exert 
every influence to make the institution self-sus- 
taining, and he well knows that success de- 
pends upon the point in view for his livelihood 
and reputation as a college solicitor. The stu- 
dents generally board in cheap boarding 
houses, and those who are more fortunate in 
worldly goods, at hotels. Their surroundings 
are more degrading than elevating, because of 
their feeble-mindedness in believing the world 
moves and lives in their being here. They are 
not tolerated in more respectable abodes. They 
learn the act of spending before the earning 
end of business and generally close their cor- 
respondence with the same reminder to the old 
folks at home, " That small favors are thank- 



154 MEANS TO ENDS. 

fully received, and larger ones in proportion." 
Generally it's the mother who indulges the son 
and is flattered to depart with the last morsal 
and hide her grief behind her tears, and screens 
the real cause with low-price and poor crops. 
When the old farm has responded so cheerfully 
in the days gone by and for such noble pur- 
poses, supplying happy homes with the neces- 
saries of life and comfort with good tillage ap- 
plied. But now the old farm groans and com- 
plains of abuse and loneliness and moans and 
sighs through the branches of the thorn and 
thistle for the good old time. But the bough 
and the frolicking youth of the companionship 
of the old farm are now changed into lobiest 
of oppression by profession. 

" Some in rags, some in jags, 
And some in velvet gowns." 

We aim to have some wise statesmen and 
politicians who are catered to and made to think 
that the sun would stand still at their command, 
but the difference between a politician and a 
statesman is, that a statesman is one who is in 
politics because he has money, and a politician 
is one who has money because he is in politics. 
They prove, as advance agents of civilization, in- 



INDIVIDUALITY. 155 

dependence, liberty, and moral vicissitudes, 
reared in idle fancies of "the spoils belong to the 
victors," devoid of conscientious scruples to fur- 
ther the means to accomplish the end in appro- 
priations of millions of dollars to educate the 
American Indian in like pursuits of living, be- 
cause of his changeable abode of advancing so- 
called civilization. He has been driven from 
pillar to post of greed of possessions of govern- 
ment allotments, until the signs of the times bids 
fair for the red man, or American Indian to dis- 
play his self or individuality, that in time will 
surpass those methods of extermination and anni- 
hilation of misguided civilization. Education is 
essential, wisely instructed. But ninety-nine 
per cent of those who return home from school, 
do nothing. The other one per cent become pro- 
fessional men. Within the past few years the 
strides made by the American red man in farming 
have displayed such character of power in pur- 
suit as to out-class those who persistently legis- 
lated to instruct. More and more Indians are 
taking to farming than the public would believe. 
But it is also true that fully thirty per cent, of 
those who have been instructed in government 
training schools will return to the reservation 
and become indolent and burdensome. I have 



156 MEANS TO ENDS. 

visited two of these schools; one in Kansas and 
one in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. It is 
quite easy to go through the routine of any school, 
but the greatest task is the application of the in- 
structions. Such habits are formed in the spirit 
of instruction as to destroy the gift of applica- 
tion. This assertion will apply ninety and nine 
times out of one hundred. One may travel 
through any of those western reservations and 
find the red man at work in the fields. Many own 
large cattle ranches and employ many of the 
white race in herding these cattle. The Indian 
may be seen blanketed, hoeing corn or driving 
the binder. Such things are quite common in 
New Mexico, Arizona, Dakota and Oklahoma. 

In Oklahoma vast fields of wheat are culti- 
vated by full-bloods, but they are called civilized 
Indians and remain so until their possessions are 
coveted by civilized people (or so-called), then 
the Indian resists, and then they are uncivilized. 
Scripture tells us to covet no one's possessions. 
One can ride a whole day through a vast field of 
wheat, sowed and cultivated by full-blood Chero- 
kees. They live in palatial homes and are hos- 
pitable people, industrious and progressive. It 
was through the influence of General John A. 
Logan and General Custer who advocated, and 



INDIVIDUALITY. 157 

not until about 1887, that the United States gov- 
ernment first came to the conclusion that man- 
ual labor would exercise a greater influence to- 
ward civilization than powder and shot. That 
was the date when their first lands were allotted 
to them. It was then believed that the proper 
way to go about teaching them to farm was to 
move them on a quarter-section of good land, 
telling them you must get a living out of this 
or starve. 

In a few years the government found this 
the shortest cut to civilization. In the Sioux 
nations once the fiercest contest ever waged. 
One sees now well developed-farms with good 
crops. Red men who have fought in many 
deadly battles are now very peaceful be- 
hind the plough and harrow in the United 
States. To-day, there are forty thousand In- 
dians who earn their living by farm-work. 
Last year they sold their farm products for a 
combined sum of one million five hundred 
thousand dollars, over and above the expen- 
ses of living. This was about forty dollars per 
capita, which is very good considering the fact 
that thirty per cent of them have never before 
farmed an acre of ground. While the govern- 
ment has demonstrated by fact that honest toil 



158 MEANS TO ENDS. 

is the school of progress and civilization, and 
that nowhere can it be obtained only in the uni- 
versal laws of nature. Nature is the greatest 
teacher and abounds everywhere. The tuition 
is honest toil. The manuscripts are written 
everywhere. The trees, the herbs, the plants, 
the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, 
the valleys, the ocean, the lakes, the river and 
the silvery brook. The birds of the air, the 
beasts of burden and hundreds of nature's 
stores, too numerous to mention, are written in 
the great Book of Life. 

This is the school of civilization, and the 
farther advanced, the greater the civilization 
that binds civil government in Christian war- 
fare with the greatest good to the greatest 
number. It soothes, it heals, it bounds, and re- 
bounds in faith, hope and charity. Its echos 
are heard in every quarter, it brings nature's 
Creator in closer proximity with all creation; it 
stimulates justice and equal rights to all men; 
it brings all in touch with new resolves and 
self-reliance. The robe of barbarity that has 
enshrouded us with greed and grief loosenes its 
cords and drops from obscurity, and displays 
the true self and individuality that begins to 



INDIVIDUALITY. 159 

hum the old familiar air, " Nearer My God to 
Thee, Let me Hide Myself in Thee." 

This is the teachings of nature, it aspires 
to Right. 

For right is right, and God is God, 
And right the day must win. 
To doubt would be disloyalty, 
To falter, would be sin. 

I have personally always been in sympathy 
with the redmen. I was at Independence, 
Kansas, several years ago. There was billed to 
exhibit the following day a " circus." About 
five hundred Indians were camped just at the 
outskirts of the town to witness the show. Some 
of the finest tanned and tattooed buffalo robes 
the human eye ever beheld was amongst their 
effects, as soft and pliable as silk, and superior 
in workmanship to any I have ever beheld from 
that day to this. Indians taste for fabrics are 
red in color. Calicos of that hue are always 
displayed on such occasion by merchants to 
catch their eye and sold at fabulous prices, that 
was what I witnessed on that day. The 
squaws were liberal purchasers. The tall 
handsome bucks, of great stature and physique, 
were to be admired. They devoted a keen pre- 



160 MEANS TO ENDS. 

cept of their surroundings, their eyes sparkled 
in keenness. The impression I never forgot. 
Their endurance has been wonderful for a man 
oppressed. One cannot help admiring them 
for their many daring deeds. Many times ag- 
gravated to deeds of violence, no more venge- 
ful than ourselves but more manly in their likes 
and dislikes. You befriend them and it was 
never forgotten and when opportunity pre- 
sented itself it was repaid many fold. 

I know of one person in the earlier days 
when the buffalos roamed the western prairies 
at will, and fed from the western slope of ra- 
vines in herds of hundreds, and oft times thou- 
sands and Indians roaming at will hunting and 
looked upon the invasion of the white man with 
suspicion. This one person told me that he 
had one team and six men who would leave 
camp in the morning. He did the shooting and 
they followed his trail with team and wagon 
and they would strip the hides and leave the 
carcass. As many as one hundred per day was 
an ordinary task. 

The skins were stretched out upon the 
prairies with the fleshy side up, and wooden 
pegs were driven through the four corners of 
the skins into the ground, and left that way 



INDIVIDUALITY. 161 

to cure out. He told me they had about six 
acres of skins, and one night the Indians came 
and cut them into shreds. Who could blame 
them for revenging such unmerciful slaughter 
of their pride. These skins obtained by thou- 
sands, after cured were tied in bundles and 
corded up along the invaded railroad that 
more resembled ricks of wood than cords of 
hides. This was only the work of one man. 
There were hundreds pursuing the same pur- 
suit. The skins were shipped east until exter- 
mination closed the havoc of the march of civ- 
ilized warfare against so harmless of beasts. 

Who showed the greater of civilization, the 
white man or the red man? I will leave the 
reader to answer to the dictation of his own 
conscience. The Indian preserved, the white 
man destroyed. We have labored to civilize the 
red man and his following so as to harmonize 
with our belief and custom of civilization until 
subjugation has given sway to greater objection. 
We have suppressed one evil and supplanted a 
greater one — penny wise and pound foolish 
would be more appropriate in expression of 
opinion, as the difference of opinion should 
cause no dissention between the reader and the 

11 



162 MEANS TO ENDS. 

writer, as that is about all that is left (opinion). 
Conquests in competition forbid the expression 
of even an opinion. We no longer hear the In- 
dian war-whoop, but have encouraged and fos- 
tered a greater evil to grow and expand while 
suppressing the lesser one. The government's 
experiment with the red man, after great cost 
of lives and money, as well as hardship, has 
solved the problem with labor as the production 
of civilization, and in turn teaches the civilized 
youth to learn the art of science and learn to 
make a living without labor, that its actual cost 
and reckoning will exceed that of the adven- 
tures with the red man from the beginning to 
the end. The whole country is dotted with 
monuments of idleness, while nature slumbers 
without labor to rouse it. The appropriation 
of means without the knowledge of attainment 
is destruction of alluring passions. It weakens 
the object of pursuit, as pursuit is greater than 
possession. And possessions do not always 
bring with them content. Instead, aggravating 
responsibilities arise in the differential attitude 
of the happiness of pursuit and the discords in 
possession that only hasten the end of many 
happy homes. 



INDIVIDUALITY. 163 

The methods employed in pursuit do not 
contrast with those of possession — the endur- 
ance of the unnatural to conform with the con- 
ditions. This is the sad feature of ambition. 
Let us reason with ourselves and see what pro- 
gress we have made in civilization and aspira- 
tion. Aspiration is one who aspires to the good, 
one who is inspired with God's wisdom, one who 
is pure in heart, one who seeks to uplift rather 
than degrade his fellow-being, one who aspires 
to maintain a spotless character that is as white 
as snow. Aspiration is meekness. Its strength 
is greater than armor and towers above ambi- 
tion as a beacon of light to guide those who have 
been shipwrecked by over-ambition. Abraham 
Lincoln was of such character. Our whole sys- 
tem of progress is fostered by ambition. Our 
youth are educated from ambitious principles 
compiled from theories and schemes advocated 
and published by concerns and monopolies that 
are fostered and encouraged by legislative enact- 
ments of bodies comprised of learned profes- 
sions, who are selected and empowered with 
authority of enactments of law as advance 
agents of civilization. When the very principle 
of law is ambition, the first act is advantage, the 
second is possession, the third is confiscation, 



164 MEANS TO ENDS. 

the fourth is annihilation. It is uncivilized for 
any commonwealth to empower every applicant 
with law. Any community would suffer less to 
arm the applicant with any weapon of death, 
either gun or sword. The community empow- 
ered with equal rights would have less fear and 
greater progress than now exists and more happy 
and contented homes. It's fear that unnerves 
any community; it retards progress and de- 
stroys intellect and, finally, a nation of weak- 
lings. Law is grand when administered by those 
endowed with aspiration. The ravages of law 
are causing untold agonies, direct and indirect, 
and of such nature as to deceive those who prac- 
tice it. Law was the forerunner of all the vast 
combinations. They combined against the rav- 
ages of law for mutual j>rotection. It was law 
that arrayed labor against capital. Law has 
created more paupers, orphan children, repre- 
sents more horror than the late rebellion and 
created more dishonor, as there was some honor 
in the struggles of war. I do not write this to 
create strife, but as truth, as truth is truth, and 
'tis time we had a little more of it. 

For when the cause is just even the small 
will conquer the great. Discipline makes good 
government. Discipline is the mixture of the 



INDIVIDUALITY. 165 

ore of progress, but regularity is the curse of all 
systems. Homer wisely uttered the sentence 
that "the man is as hateful to me as the gates of 
hell who hides one thing in his mind and utters 
another. 7 ' This is characteristic of civilization 
that predominates everywhere. Business is a 
crafty pursuit in blank. Religion is the bark 
launched one day in seven upon the morning 
tide, the cloak unfurled as the sail; the rudder, 
deceit ; the anchor is gold ; the name is heartless ; 
the color is black; the mast is clay; the figure- 
head the emblem of destruction. This repre- 
sents the craftiness of business that we call pro- 
gress and civilization, and the prime factor and 
cause of diminishing religious congregations. 
The competitive systems of business have gained 
such a footing as to disclose the deterrogating 
influences of progress and civilization. One may 
ascend the ladder of fame, honor and wealth 
until the last round is reached. Then the de- 
scent slowly begins. As the descent begins, each 
descending round of the ladder gives way from 
the strain of the descent, until the last round is 
reached. All sorts of nostrums were tried in 
the descent, but no relief — that's ambition. 'Tis 
then aspiration begins to dawn and gather to- 
gether the fragments of destruction and shape 



166 MEANS TO ENDS. 

them into triumphal success. Aspiration is the 

very sinew of success. 

If to some theme 'tis thy intent to rise, 

Thou must attend how best to tune thy lyre, 

Else disdain thy well-picked notes inspire ; 

Herein the secret of true triumph lies. 

When thou wouldst rear a work of mighty size, 

Advance but slowly as a growing fire ; 

Scan well thy path lest hasty actions tire, 

Or like a flame thy ardor's impulse dies. 

Proud with hope, believe the goal in view, 

Let not mere failures prey upon thy heart ; 

Great oaks, remember, from small acorns grew; 

Though it be trivial, well perform thy part, 

And preserving till thy labors through, 

Full crowned success will into being start. 

These lines are the essentials of success and 
well worthy of remembrance. One cannot attain 
success without years of ardent toil. Impulse 
and principle must accompany your every act. 
Aspire to excel within yourself and to do good 
without. Encourage the right and suppress the 
wrong. Strive not for riches and seek not after 
vain things. These are knotty problems, but the 
only solvent of betterment. They are aspira- 
tions of sincere individuality and composing ele- 



INDIVIDUALITY. 167 

ments of elevating civilization. Instead, you 
cast about and envy this one and that one and 
imagine and brood over perplexities because you 
cannot gratify your cravings for that which 
never was intended for you. You try and you 
fail. You fail and you try, and give up discour- 
aged, despondent and ofttinies feel as though it 
was to be damned if you did and be damned if 
you don't. In this mood you offer your service 
to one who has experienced the same as you, but 
kept courage, and at last got his bearings and 
became master of his fate. After several years 
elapse, it may be a lifetime, you look back and 
sum up the start, and then it all is clear to you 
that you both started with equal chances. The 
one kept his grip, the other lost his and his cour- 
age. It requires one's whole lifetime to accom- 
plish any well-meaning pursuit of life, because 
as time expires and age advances new cares and 
greater responsibilities increase until it requires 
the combined forces of both mind and body to 
combat with them. These are the fruits of labor 
in civilization that tend to keep the mind and 
body employed. It is when we become idle that 
we contract bad habits and gather immoral in- 
fluence from idleness. Every man should have 
and conduct some honorable business, for any 



168 MEANS TO ENDS. 

man who has no business has no business here. 
This will apply to both sexes in the development 
of civilization. While with one who is well ad- 
vanced with the affairs of state that comprises 
so many changes in so short a period is beyond 
apprehension and comparison in the annals of 
civilization. The wonderful strides have left 
their imprint upon the face of nature, and the 
morals and general character of activity have 
deteriorated as progress has advanced, until the 
very foundation is being undermined in the 
greed for gain. 

And the struggle for existence and suprem- 
acy is waged with such bitterness of instinct as 
to destroy the usefulness of progress by the 
masses, who have been decoyed by means of it 
to accomplish the end. No one ever dreamed of 
witnessing that which has transpired, or experi- 
encing the ingratitude and inconsistency of hu- 
man nature. Progress has brought with it its 
perplexities and its embitterments, its sorrows 
and its remorses. It has laid its imperialistic 
hand upon fate. It has severed the holy bonds 
of peace and trampled justice beneath its feet. 
It has created discord and discontent. It has 
created dudes and dupes, idleness and want, 
trusts, pools and gigantic combinations, in order 



INDIVIDUALITY. 169 

to escape its ravages. It has been fondled and 
petted until progress has given way to satisfy 
the cravings of ambitious means that flow into 
the reservoirs of vast wealth to hasten the end 
of blasphemy and put to shame the Goddess of 
Liberty, or the seal of our national pride, E 
Pluribus Unum, or the screech of our emblem 
of republic, the American eagle, or the celebra- 
tion of the national holiday of July Fourth in 
honor of the Declaration of Independence, or 
national airs. "O'er the land of the free and the 
home of the brave," or the sweetest and dearest 
song that was ever heard, "Home, Sweet Home." 
Then, in order to appease the clamorous and 
tumultuous crowds, gigantic public resorts have 
been reared and fostered in pleasure's pursuit. 
Pleasure is the flower that passes remembrance 
the lasting perfume. The indulgence has left 
many passions so sweet that they excuse all the 
follies they provoke at the present. 

Pleasures are like poppies spread 
You seize the flower and its bloom is shed ; 
Or like snowflakes upon the river, 
For a moment only and gone forever. 

We have trotted a fast pace. There were 
manv entries and but one stake winner. All 



170 MEANS TO ENDS. 

were confident, but out of our class. Run a good 
race but was jockeyed. Track was smooth but 
we stumbled. We all entered with equal chances 

and same pursuit. This represents the race of 
life. So now if you will keep in your class as 
experience has taught you/ and rise but slowly, 
progress will care for itself. For you cannot 
ride, run. If you cannot run, walk. If you can- 
not walk, crawl. If you cannot crawl, make 
signs. You will by and by make some sign that 
will talk, and as you advance the scale you will 
experience them all. In the start there will be 
a great many tumbles, bruises, cries and yelps, 
but don't mind them, for these are a part of life. 
This represents business . So if you are not- 
blessed with an overabundance of repeaters of 
get ups, to every fall down, you would have been 
better located to have died when born, as the 
new born babe who opened its eyes looked 
around, smiled and died. One glance was suffi- 
cient. Those last few lines I will dedicate the 
college student as fitting emblems of their ambi- 
tion. As labor was the stepping stones to civil- 
ization, the writer is of the opinion that if the 
searchlight of honest inquiry was turned upon 
these public institutions of learning it would re- 
veal sights and doings that would call forth in- 



INDIVIDUALITY. 171 

vestigation of pursuit and demerits of depravity 
and idleness of purpose. Having experienced 
the truth of these statements is mild in form as 
to the depredation of the acts. There are others, 
mentioning these facts without malice but with 
such motives of provoking or encouraging such 
degrading calamities in civilized homes. Any- 
thing worth having is worth the cost. So, if these 
boys were given to understand that they must be 
their own tutor there would be instead where 
only one spear of grass grows, there would be 
now two. For if the boy has the right stuff in 
him he will get there, college or no college. You 
cannot make a six thousand dollar man out of 
a ten cent boy. The farm is the greater college. 
The walls are space. The roof the starry heav- 
ens. The instructor "nature." The assistant 
"good books" to broaden your intellect and ex- 
pand your mind. Tuitions is labor. One year 
with nature is of more value than a life time in 
any college. The college boy is not wise in his 
own conceit. All who know him will admit. I 
would reform the college student or kill him off. 
I protest for one. I know we pretend to dote on 
him and offer to believe that he is the first care 
of the state. But its false, we don't. Nobody 
but his mother does. From the time he first 



172 MEANS TO ENDS. 

starts out he becomes an insufferable nuisance. 
If at that stage of his career his own gall could 
be divided into three hundred parts instead of 
three, and he left with only one of them, the relief 
to mankind and to himself would be commenda- 
ble. Because an infinite fraction of the whole 
of what he has would suffice the needs of any or- 
dinary mortal. Why do I say these hard things 
about him? I say them because of good reasons, 
as nothing is law that is not reason. And more 
reasons than I would care to mention. The youth 
is only a tool in the hands of a few, over which 
the parents has no control as long as the means 
may further the ends. What I am about to say 
is only a part of the play. To create enthusiasm 
for other victims in support and maintainance 
of these vast numbers of misguided youth and 
impoverished homes. I say it because he is self- 
important, noisy, conceited and ignorant of all 
practical knowledge of the hardships of his sup- 
porters. He lacks wisdom, parts his hair in the 
middle, flaunts his fraternity badge and school 
colors in an offensive sort of way in everybody's 
face, and goes up street yawping his ear-splitt- 
ing yell to the fright and disgust of all mind 
sensitive folks within sound. I have saw him at 
theatres that their acts were hissed, but still 



INDIVIDUALITY. 173 

their unmitigated gall would not permit of re- 
spect of the better class or element that had gath- 
ered to witness some special admirer of the foot 
lights. They would make more noise and take 
up more room than the whole audience. Elbow- 
ing everybody out of the way and drowning the 
voices and the music with their idiotic, book 
chalk, jay hawk rah, rahO-S-U, or whatever the 
gibberish is. I have seen somewhat of this world 
and I think I have correctly sized up a good 
many people in it, and I give it as my mature 
and solemn judgment based upon a careful un- 
prejudiced comparison and experience with the 
many classes of people who cultivate the habit 
of making a holy show out of themselves, that 
w T ith one exception the average college student 
the most obtrusive and bigotted ass that fronts 
the grieved and frowning face of heaven. Now 
I am not objecting to what this creature might 
learn at school. It's what he doesn't learn that 
I am talking about. He's lazy; he doesn't de- 
sign himself for any of the usual work of man- 
kind. Nobody ever heard of a college student 
who was fitting himself for anything but one of 
the learned professions of how to live off the 
balance of mankind. He's going to be a lawyer. 
Yes, a lawyer. That, he thinks, offers the best 



174 MEANS TO ENDS. 

opportunity for his cravings with the least ex- 
ertion. Sort of if yon don't I will dreamy ex- 
pression, perhaps a preacher. If the sexton 
wonld agree to carry in the coal and make fires, 
and do the sweeping of the parsonage and a Chi- 
cago syndicate furnish him the sermons at ten 
cents per. Then perhaps a doctor. He thinks 
that it may be best to be connected with some 
Medical University with hospital attached that 
he may hand out your friends in parcels, or as 
a whole, as you may choose them. Then the edi- 
tor looms up as the ideal to write up the scan- 
dals or a fabulous sum for suppression. He 
thinks of the author and writes fiction that 
would reach the one thousand edition. The ora- 
tor, the statesman and no doubting thought ever 
ruifies his serenely egotistic soul that when once 
he vaults into the arena of affairs the things of 
this world will be speedily set to rights. But 
when he finally does land out the much abused 
long suffering world gets its revenge. The world 
just trips him up and rolls its big self over him 
and mashes the wind out of him, and then picks 
him up and chucks him into a little 8x10 office, 
with cobwebs on the ceiling and fly specks on 
the windows and two broken chairs on the floor, 
and a dozen second-hand books in a lobby old 



INDIVIDUALITY. 175 

case with the glas broken out and refuses to 
pay his board bill any longer goes off and leaves 
him to learn wisdom from the ant. Nor have I 
any malice toAvard the college student only to 
show them the waywardness of their folly and 
display theirself or individuality like men. Your 
out of your class. I only think you take up too 
much room and make too much noise. You cost 
too much money and are too smart in the bud- 
ding days of your career. If you could only be 
induced to subside somewhat to practice a little 
the modest habit of self erracenient, go out and 
soak your head, turn on the X rays upon your 
inwards and see yourself as others see you we 
could possibly endure you. But you won't. You 
have spent the better part of life in book learn- 
ing, athletic sports and theories of practices, and 
vain ideas of principles fixed and fostered in ed- 
ucational pursuits that bids fair to shake the 
very foundation of civilization. That future ages 
will scarcely believe the hardiness of one people 
of natural pursuits and economical tendencies 
of industrial habits could be induced to furnish 
the subject and the means to rear palaces of the- 
oretical institutions of idleness and learning that 
is shaking the fundamental principles of Chris- 
tianity over the entire w orld. Theological teach- 



176 MEANS TO ENDS. 

ings are not accepted as plain facts because of 
advanced theories to dodge the main issue in 
order to sooth the consciences to suit the occa- 
sion while the awfulness is as a smoldering fire 
and only needs a little more smoldering to kindle 
the flame to expose the dark and sinewy ways of 
guardians of peace in positions of trust in the 
manipulation of affairs with means to accom- 
plish the end. There are projects in existence 
at this very time that are only being taken up 
thread at a time that when completed you may 
hang on the wall as the revised map of the new 
affairs. It will require time, perhaps a quarter 
of a century, but the seed is planted, and is being 
nourished by absorbing means to the end. All 
this is the ravage of ambition and professions. 
They represent unsteady gain that bring with 
them their activities and their oppressions. Com- 
mercial interest boom with activity that stimu- 
late fictitious values. These oppressions dictate 
the real value or worth in open market. These 
oppressions claim its victims until each succeed- 
ing activity of over ambition with greater op- 
pression. These periods occur about ever ten 
years. And with each succeeding period activity 
increases as oppression diminishes in corres- 
ponding value until wealth concentrates into 



INDIVIDUALITY. 177 

vast reservoirs of monopolized capital that is the 
very pulse of adversity or prosperity. Supply 
and demand are no more the sound of value. 
? Tis capital that sways the markets. Artificial 
products have a greater tendency to lessen the 
value of the natural product than from any other 
source. We have become a world of imitators in 
almost every cereal or vegetable we partake of 
them as nourishment as being palatable and 
digestible into our stomachs just because the 
label says so, but our stomachs differ from the 
prescribed nutrician on the label and refuses to 
respond to its natural function with the unnat- 
ural treatment. We become irritable, nervous, 
all out of sorts. Everything is wrong and you 
don't know what ails you. Your whole family is 
afflicted the same way. All of these unnatural 
products have been analyzed by professional 
chemistry and pronounced harmless with their 
different elements of bone, muscle and brain pro- 
ducing food. You become alarmed in your con- 
dition and call your family physician. He pro- 
nounces your case critical and prescribes another 
stomach tester and another until your stomach 
becomes sulky and cramped and refuses to lim- 
ber up or accept any greater criticism in the dis- 

12 



178 MEANS TO ENDS. 

charge of duty. As the stomach represents the 
fountain head or dictator of the human 
system with all its tributaries as they all 
attack in sympathy. They conclude to quit 
and allow civilization take its course for 
you have no more interest. Then the last 
professional act is performed with your 
avoirdupois by injecting about four gallons of 
liquid into your body at four dollars per gallon 
— to make you look pleasant as long as you are 
here. You might, unawares, perform a somnam- 
bulist feat and return and swim round in a pick- 
ling vat and be fished out and tell science what 
was the matter with you, as you acted queer, 
and did not relish the treatment. But after di- 
agnosis of your case we find the lack of means 
aggravated your case that hastened the end. This 
represents the science of art in the craftiness of 
profession. The wrongs inflicted can never be 
supplemented with rights enforced. But we 
overcome this with natural results of maintain- 
ance that lives are sacrificed every day that oth- 
ers may live from the vegetable kingdom to the 
animal kingdom. One vegetable gives way in ex- 
haustible measures in order to perpetuate an- 
other. The fishes of the sea, the fowls of the air, 
the beasts that roam the forest, the domestic 



INDIVIDUALITY. 179 

animal, all are victims of the sustenance of the 
greater. One cannot partake of any food without 
the notice of sacrificing life in order to sustain 
his own. Wars are waged with the awful de- 
struction that others may thrive and nations be 
preserved. But as stated the wrongs inflicted 
can never be supplemented with rights enforced. 
I do not wish the reader to entertain any insin- 
uation or cast any undue reflection, as that is 
not the writer's intent. But impulse and princi- 
ple with distilled ambition, supplemented with 
aspiration, affiliated from experience and close 
observation, gathered from success and failures 
in the intermingling with the masses and differ- 
ent classes in every pursuit of life. Prompted 
with one desire to aspire in excellence of thought 
in expounding the materialistic views of means 
to ends. Nor does the writer wish or with any 
intent to array class against class in expound- 
ing truths Avith grave responsibilities that con- 
front us in national, state, municipal and domes- 
tic relations that are being shifted and knocked 
about with bruises and sores until the malady 
is deadly and as unsettled and as dark as the un- 
fathomed depths of "Hell." All sorts of theories 
are advanced but no relief. With arrayed false- 
hood against truth of libel intent and ferocious 



180 MEANS TO ENDS. 

sentiment in the despoiling of reputable charac- 
ters and reputation of personal and private re- 
lations until so great is the clamor for sensa- 
tional news that the public press clamors for 
news of sensational character that is taken up 
by the youth and cries it aloud upon public high- 
ways to excite the cravings of passions in the 
depravity of civilization. This denotes the drift 
of mind and character of sentiment until griev- 
ances are pigeon-holed in many private compart- 
ments. Grievances and hatred treasured up in 
many broken hearts. Smouldering emblems of 
vengeance that only abides the time of revenge. 
These are the fruits of ambition that destroys 
the nobility of character and undermines the 
fundamental principles of self government. Am- 
bition follows vain pursuits, and its pursuit daz- 
zles and sparkles in splendor arrayed. It allures 
you on forgetful of your surroundings and the 
rapidity you are going, until suddenly light re- 
veals the awful chasm. Ambition was greater 
than the means in your selfish desires to conquer 
worlds without means to end. Ambition is thriv- 
ing, it schemes and plans in the silent hours of 
weasome morning when honest toil is in sweet 
repose, with contented minds and peaceful 
homes full of hope and aspiration, not dream- 



INDIVIDUALITY. 181 

ing that ambition was weaving the web of de- 
struction in their aspiration to own their little 
home. Like the man who lay down beneath the 
shade of the maple tree to rest. He fell asleep 
and slept on. The ambitious spider toiled on 
and wove the web across his body ten thousand 
strong, and when the man awoke he found him- 
self a prisoner to the spider. Ambition was the 
downfall of the Eoman Empire, the Spanish and 
others. They sought to conquer and add new lau- 
rels in deadly conflict, but new possessions only 
aggravated greater ones until ambition far ex- 
ceeded the means to accomplish the end. Nations 
boast of their civilization when future ages will 
denounce us as uncivilized because of methods 
pursued with customs and j)ractices that are 
barbarous and uncivilized to satisfy greed and 
lust. Men sit in the most fashionable pews of 
our churches and contribute liberally for its sup- 
port from means collected of personal property 
that are veritable hells of debauchery and crime 
They excuse themselves and ease their minds by 
referring to their agents, forgetting that prin- 
cipals are responsible for their agens' acts. 
This is ambition arrayed in gaudy attire 
of fashions and customs, that parade the 
aisles of houses of worship and rehearse the 



182 MEANS TO ENDS. 

sermon around the fashionable fireside, com- 
piled with such scrutiny as to harmonize 
with the surroundings of obedience to mam- 
mon, devoid of any conscientious scruples in 
the transaction of business affairs to meet the 
demands of the princely divine. Such means 
are not worthy but only illustrate to what means 
are resorted to meet the ends, and then we 
bow to submission and console ourselves in the 
belief that charity covers a multitude of sins. 
How despicable the feelings and thoughts must 
be of those who can number their victims by the 
score in the practice of their stately professions 
and oppressions of despair, and the ingratitude 
of ambition in the greed of possession without 
the right of concession of means that leave only 
monuments of silent green mounds in the village 
church yard of lasting remembrance of the end. 
Now don't throw the book down and cry con- 
found it. Brace up and let your spirits climb, for 
we are bound to find in the course of time some 
way to get around it. 'Tis this that will be the 
means of causing the face of nature to blossom 
as the rose and to smile in prosperous abund- 
ance. It has required fifty years of honest sturdy 
toil to accumulate the means to educate ambi- 
tion into the youth and the displacement of in- 



INDIVIDUALITY. 183 

dividuality and complacent adjective professions 
of learned oppression and achievments of treas- 
urable practice in mutual enactments of daily 
transactions in lieu of the environments of pleas- 
ure has depleted the treasures of means to end. 
Something for nothing is the predominating am- 
bition of every profession. Exertion is laborious 
and distasteful. It is a continuous shifting of 
responsibilities and cares, and anxieties in the 
affairs of national state, private and individual. 
And yet claims the honor of distinction by posi- 
tion only. If the real power behind the throne 
was exposed to public view, the pulse of public 
sentiment would quicken and revolt and expose 
the culprit as a traitor and betrayer of confi- 
dence and faith in the power of public opinion. 
This predominates everywhere at home and 
abroad, it has deadened the insensibility of in- 
dividuality. This only articulates the pre- 
sumptuous feeling of the political arena and pre 
dominating element in control of means to end. 
So predominating is the practicing element of 
the power behind the throne that it is with tim- 
idity we address the husband as the head of the 
family. 

The false conceptions and imperfections of 
individuality that predominates in the ambitious 



184 MEANS TO ENDS. 

nature against aspiration and the natural in- 
clination of human nature in combatting in 
strife against warfare, for possession of means 
to conquer worlds without ends in industrial 
pursuits and leave monuments of despair in the 
path of craving ambition spiced with lust and. 
depraved humanity as memorials for future pos- 
terities as a nation imbued with independence, 
celebrated as our national confirmation of a lib- 
erty-loving people. Liberty is suppressed by 
law and administered by the most depraved in- 
dividuality known to mortal man. Independ- 
ence is a mockery, a myth, a snare, a delusion, 
propagated and nourished with deception of 
perfection, their causes and effects of means to 
ends. It is the writer's hope^ and aspiration 
that this little volume will so inspire every 
reader in thought, mind and soul to enlist every 
effort in reclaiming the constitutional rights, 
liberties and independence of liberty-loving peo- 
ple. 

THE GOLDEN RULE. 

Do unto others as you would have others 
do unto you. And the ten commandments are 
the only universal laws of creative power that 
really influence or have any direct bearing upon 



INDIVIDUALITY. 



185 



the minds of the people and the safest means 
to end. The reader may censure and critize the 
writer in discrimination of objectionable means 
to ends, as censure and criticism never hurt 
anybody. If false, they cannot hurt you unless 
you are wanting in manly character; and if true, 
they show a man his weak points and forewarn 
him against failure and trouble. To prosecute 
is right, to persecute is wrong. Hundreds of 
men have been driven into continued crime by 
the dogging of their footsteps by the authorities 
instead of giving them a fair opportunity to do 
better. Better that sin should shame us than 
damn us. It is the damnable means employed 
in the suppression of crime — it persecutes the 
purpose of the prosecution of the offense. This 
results largely from over indulgence in educa- 
tion and vain idle fancies of pursuit. It is 
against any person to be or try to be a practical 
farmer or skilled mechanic. It is against heavy 
odds to even apply practical common sense in 
one's own affairs. It is the scum element that 
overrules the better class. With the arm of such 
laws reaching out in the control of machine 
element, in politics, business and home affairs 
unt'l fear has weakened the means that succor 
the ends. Capital is timid. Idleness predom- 



186 MEANS TO ENDS. 

inates. Industry and labor demand equality 
without skill or adaptability and imposing im- 
position of arrayed ignorance against experience 
until forbearance has almost ceased to become 
a virtue and caused the writer to compose these 
few lines. 

Shun not men of humble birth, 

Some possess a hero's soul. 
By their actions judge their worth, 

Noble deeds live beyond this earth. 

Believing most all men honest at heart and 
principle, if their surroundings would so per- 
mit. It is the unnatural individuality that 
despoils the personalities and defrauds the bet- 
ter part of man in every walk of life. Capital 
and labor should cultivate such individuality 
and such feelings as to think — 

I would be only too glad 

To say good morning 
As you pass along the way, 

It would spread the morning glory 
O'er the live-long day. 

The display of individuality actuated from 
experience of course only to be achieved by liv- 
ing, and living is a question of time. I have 



INDIVIDUALITY. 187 

learned from experience to rely upon time as 
my helper. I will wager time and I against 
any two, haying experienced time as a beauti- 
fier and my all-wise consoler; it has been the 
means of food for experience and the soil 
of wisdom. But as time has pased I have 
found the world to be a place of sorrow as 
well as of joy. Having witnessed many dark 
scenes of toil, suffering, difficulty, misfortune, 
and failure. Happy are they who can pass 
through amidst such trials with a firm mind and 
pure heart, encountering trials with cheerful- 
ness and standing erect beneath even the 
heaviest burden. But it is a healthy indication 
of character to be encouraged in a right direc- 
tion and not to be sneered down and repressed. 
The brave man will not be baffled, but tries and 
tries again until he succeeds. The tree does not 
fall at the first stroke; it is repeated strokes 
that accomplishes the task. Cyrus Field was 
twelve years in accomplishing the task of suc- 
cessfully laying the first Atlantic cable. My 
father faced debt for thirty years before he 
could call possessions his own by right of title 
in lieu of taxes that are encumberances on 
means to end. But of all this after great labor 
one may see the visible success at which one has 



188 MEANS TO ENDS. 

arrived, but forget the toil and suffering and 
peril through which it had been achieved. Then 
jealousy and prejudice displays the personal in- 
dividuality of man. All these the author has 
experienced. Many will envy me, but I am will- 
ing that you may have all these things at a bet- 
ter bargain than I had. If you will only step 
out and allow me to fire at you with a gun thirty 
times at thirty paces, and if I don't kill you, all 
shall be your own. Well, but you won't shrink 
from the ordeal. Very well, recollect then that 
I have been shot at more than a thousand times 
and much nearer before I arrived at the state 
which you now find me. The apprenticeship of 
difficulty is one which the greatest of men have 
had to serve. It is usually the best stimulus and 
discipline of character; it often revokes power 
of action that but for it would have remained 
dormant. As miracles are sometimes per- 
formed by accident, so heroes are brought 
to light by sudden calamity. It seems as if 
in certain cases genius, like iron struck by 
the flint, needed the sharp and sudden blow 
of adversity to bring out the divine spark. 
There are natures which blossom and ripen 
amidst trials, which only wither and decay 
in an atmosphere of ease and comfort. Thus 



INDIVIDUALITY. 189 

it is good for men to be roused into action 
and stiffened into self-reliance by difficulty, 
rather than to slumber away their lives in 
useless idleness. It is the struggle that is 
the condition of victory in all honorable pur- 
suits of life. If there were no difficulties tjiere 
would be no need of effort. Thus difficulty, ad- 
versity and suffering are not all evil, but after 
the best source of strength; for the same reason 
it is often of advantage for a man to be under 
the necessity of having to struggle with poverty 
and conquer it. He who has battled with pov- 
erty and hard toil will be found stronger and 
more expert than he who could stay at home 
concealed amongst plenty. It is often one's pov- 
erty that makes the world rich. It is not pros- 
perity so much as adversity, not wealth so much 
as poverty, that stimulates the perseverance of 
strong and healthy natures as well as nations. 
It rouses their energy and develops their char- 
acter. Some men only require a great difficulty 
in their way to exhibit the form of their char- 
acter and genius, and that difficulty once con- 
quered becomes one of the greatest incentives 
of their further progress. It is a mistake to sup- 
pose that men succeed through success. They 
much oftener succeed through failure, by far 



190 MEANS TO ENDS. 

the best experience of men is made up of their 
rememberd failures in sensible men incite to 
better self-government and greater toil and 
self-control as a means of avoiding them in 
the end. Henry Clay was elected United States 
senator from his district to represent his con- 
stituents in certain measures, but from some 
reason he cast his vote contrary to that pledge. 
He had one great friend who was his companion 
on many hunting expeditions. Upon his return 
home, riding leisurely along, mounted on his 
trusty horse, as that was the only mode of travel 
in those days, he met his friends with gun in 
hand. They halted, and Mr. Clay's friend 
reprimanded him for his conduct as their repre- 
sentative. Mr. Clay remonstrated with his 
friend by asking him if his gun had ever flashed 
in the pan, as fllint-lock guns were the only style 
of gun in those days. His reply was, once; he 
prized the gun very highly for all that. Mr. 
Clay asked him if he would part with the gun 
for all that it had flashed in the pan once. His 
reply was no. Well, Mr. Clay told him, "Why 
do you wish to part friends with me? Did I 
ever flash in the pan before?" The hunter real- 
ized the point and forgave Mr. Clay and re- 
mained fast friends. But time brings about 



INDIVIDUALITY. 191 

strange revenges. The persecutors and the per- 
secuted often change places. It is the perse- 
cuted who are great, the persecutors who are 
infamous. Even the names of the persecutors 
would probably long ago have been forgotten 
but for their connection with the history of the 
men whom they have persecuted. Men ofttimes 
break through strong barriers and defy the 
power of their persecutors. As there are no 
blessings that may not be perverted into evils, 
so there are no trials that may not be converted 
into blessings.. Even in private life too much 
prosperity either injures the moral man and his 
household and occasions conduct which ends in 
suffering or is accompanied by the workings of 
envy, calamity and persecution by law. Men 
may have nothing yet may possess all. Experi- 
ence is often bitter but wholesome. Only by its 
teachings can we learn to suffer and be strong. 
Character in its highest forms is disciplined by 
trial and from the deepest sorrow. The patient 
and thoughtful mind will gather richer wisdom 
than pleasure ever yielded. No man is more 
miserable than he that hath no adversity. That 
man is not tried whether he be good or bad. 
Prosperity and success of themselves do not con- 
fer happiness. Indeed it infrequently happens 



192 MEANS TO ENDS. 

that the least successful in life have the greatest 
share of true joy. The wise person gradually 
learns not to expect too much from life, while 
he strives for success by worthy methods, he will 
be prepared for failures. 

Wailings and complainings of life are never 
of any use, nor will the wise man expect too 
much of them about him; if he would live at 
peace with others he will bear and forbear who 
is perfect. Who does not suffer from some 
thorn in his flesh? for myself, keep me innocent, 
make others great. Then how much does the 
disposition of every human being depend 
upon their individuality and their suround- 
ings. The comforts and discomforts of the 
homes in which they have been brought up, 
their inherited characteristices and the ex- 
amples good or bad, to which they have 
been exposed through life, regard for such 
considerations should teach charity and fore- 
bearance to all men, at the same time life 
will always, to a large extent, what we 
ourselves make it. Each mind makes its own 
little world, the cheerful mind makes it pleas- 
ant and the discontented mind makes it miser- 
erable. 

Life is for the most part but the mirror of 



INDIVIDUALITY. 193 

our own individual selves. Our mind gives to 
all situations, to all fortunes high or low, their 
real characters. To the good, the world is good ; 
to the bad, the world is bad. There is much in 
this life we can never comprehend. There is in- 
deed a great deal of mystery in life. Much that 
we see as through smoky glass but though we 
may not apprehend the full meaning of the dis- 
cipline of trial through which the best have to 
pass. We must have faith in the completeness 
of the designer of which our little individuals 
form a part, but short though our stay in life 
may be, it is the appointed sphere in which 
each has to work out the means to ends. As 
one touch of nature makes the whole world kin. 
Having traveled much over this vast country 
that is so beautiful, dotted with its picturesque 
scenery, one would almost feel that all was a 
dream as you glide smoothly along over land and 
sea. The variation of scenery of lowlands and 
snow-capped mountains in the spring time when 
the birds begin to sing and buds and promises 
of flowers and harvest, and the earth unfolds its 
treasures under the influence of the descending 
sun. When summer days are hot and dry, and 
animal nature and earth's foilage parched and 

18 



194 . MEANS TO ENDS. 

dried, when all creation is suffering with heat 
and thirst; then 'tis we in whom there exists 
the spirit of freedom sigh for the woods 
and stream, or to seek out some quite nook 
by the babbling brook, where the silvery 
ripples thread their way through picturesque 
valleys and dales, over moss-covered boulders, 
out into the gulf streams of activity of 
waves that roll with snow-white crests, with 
the incoming tide to be dashed to pieces 
against the breakers. We desire to visit 
some spot where anticipated pleasure will be 
found, to camp among the whispering pines with 
waters swishing at our feet and throw out the 
life line that we may catch one glimpse of our 
longings. Many of us are wearied of business 
pursuits, we crave a retreat where the mind and 
body can obtain rest from the overtaxed nerv- 
ous system; where the soul will find that sweet 
content while resting amidst the peacefuiness of 
nature. Then after the day is gone we lay 
upon the mossy bank of life's journey when the 
dimness of twilight has cast its rainbow hews 
over the silvery river of life with our face heav- 
enward with the stars dazzling with splendor, 
we ask ourselves " What does it all mean?" We 
look back with meditation and dream that just 
over the River is the End. 



AUG 4 1904 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

029 785 108 1 




StoENB 





if. DeWEESE 



IliillllllllliUIllIHIIiillllllillllllllllillll 




